2. amps-preamps
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Tube pre- or amp: does it matter?

Hi,

I'm considering introducing a tube component into my system (Cary 306/200, Placette pre, Macintosh 300, Gallo 3.1) to bring out a little more depth, staging and musicality. I'm willing to start from scratch with both the pre and amp. If I were to balance tube and ss, is there a rule of thumb about whether it's better to have a tube for pre or a tube for amp? All things being equal (which they seldom are) would one make a bigger difference in sound than the other? In my electronic ignorance, I'm wondering if there might be something about whether the tube is closer to your source or closer to your speakers. (Of course, I may end up with tube for both.)

Thanks for any help,
Bob
holderlin
newbee
4,767 posts
 
Most folks start their introduction to tubes with a tube pre-amp. Its a lot easy to use, the effects are more noticible to most people, and all you have to be concerned about is the matching of its output (gain and impedence) to an appropriate amp. That way you can increase your knowledge about tubes, making way for the day you decide to go to a tube amp as well, which I highly recommend.
sogood51
2,157 posts
 
I started with a tubed preamp, added tube amps a couple years latter. The amps make the bigger difference in my system but the preamp on it's own mated with a nice SS amp sounded very good also.

Dave
rar1's avatar
rar1
1,766 posts
 
I did it the opposite way, as I already owned a Musical Fidelity CD PRE 24, which is a solid state preamp/CD player combo. I replaced a Musical Fidelity A300 power amp with a Prima Luna Prologue 5 tube amp.

With a tube power amp (36wpc), I notice that the sound is richer and fuller, but doesn't doesn't quite have the slam that a muscle power amp has (150 wpc).

One thing about doing it this way, I did not have to be concerned about output matching as Newbee mentioned above.

Regards, Rich
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