Looking For The Best Pre-Amp Match For A Pair of Classe Omega Amplifiers


Going to pick up a pair of Classe Omega monoblock amplifiers this week. Need to select a pre-amp for it. 

 

Was wondering which Classe pre-amps  were considered their best offerings?

 

Any thoughts or insights would be greatly appreciated.

neonknight

I am going to suggest a wonderful Line Amp from Benchmark, their LA-4 (Love Mine) NEUTRAL   They also offer a model I believe is an HP-4 more expensive than the LA-4 @ $2500 (remote $100) Hp-4 3K  with Great headphone AMP,  see all reviews. Talk to RORY in Upstate NY @ Benchmark.  Great website also,  30 day free trial period, 5 year warranty   All reviews are outstanding     Hope this helps. Good Luck  Robert

To be honest a lot of these upper tier pre-amps have attributes I really don't care for. Why do they have to use programmable inputs? I don't care what set of jacks are assigned to what input button and the corresponding one on the remote. I just want a high quality pre amp with excellent volume control, balanced outputs, and remote control capability. I don't need a huge electronic display or bunches of other stuff....these newer pre-amps have LCD screens that just look like trouble to me. 

I will admit, to me, no preamp comes to mind with the attributes you seek that is not tubed. My recommendation for a not cold, detailed neutral preamp would be an Audio Research Reference… as contemporary as you can afford.
 

I guess if push came to shove I would recommend a Pass for solid state. I owned mostly Pass amps and preamps for decades.  

Backert is tubed but is not Conrad-Johnson-tubey, and has all the attributes you desire and none that you don't want.

I just want a high quality pre amp with excellent volume control, balanced outputs, and remote control capability.

If you want to get the most out of balanced operation, with whatever preamp you look at, ask if it supports AES48, the balanced line standard. Most high end audio preamps don't.