Tube Pre/ Class D Amp - Who has done it?


Open forum for those who have actually tried this.  Really curious to know who has been happy, or maybe unhappy, with a tube preamp driving a Class D amplifier?

Of course, tube pre with a solid state amp is a classic pairing for hard to drive speakers, especially ESL's.   This is a little different.   I'm really curious to know what pres and Class D amps have had great synergy.

erik_squires

I ran a Rogue RP-1 with Mullards and PS Audio S-300.  Sounded great for the $s.   Ended up getting some Quad speakers so moved the S300 down the line and picked up a Quad Altera stereo A/B to try and pick up some synergy.

Bryston coming out with a new class D offering that really interests me.

I think tube pre and class D amps or A/B make a great combo.

@marco1 I definitely am not missing the heat. I was very particular in getting rid of heat generated anything and am limited to my Allnic now. But I can dream. 

I've been running a tube preamp with class Ds as well. Both are balanced and the amps are so light and make no heat so they sit on top of my speakers. I'm able to run long interconnects so my speaker cables are quite short. I used to run a set of our M-60 OTL monoblocks (fully optioned) but the class Ds do everything better so I don't miss the tubes at all (although I enjoy tube amps quite a lot). Nice to have no heat even after running all day and no worries about power tubes while having the same relaxed mids and highs.

I’ve run various tube preamps into Class D amps and consider Class D just like any other solid state amp wrt compatibility with a tube preamp or linestage. 
I had the matching set of battery powered pre and power amps from Veloce Audio (LS-1 pre and Saetta hybrid monoblocks with 6h30 tubes and Hypex power module), also run tube preamps with PS Audio M700s. Never had an issue. I think Class D has come a long way since the early days. I’d like to try a GaN Class D next up, maybe one from Atma-Sphere.