Why Tube Pre-SS amp over SS Pre- Tube amp?

dc generated by some preamps can damage some ss amps, so ss pre and tube amps may be safer.

sonically, i prefer tubed pre and tubed amp.

however, if my back were to the wall and i could find a lush tube pre and felt confident that a ss amp would not be damaged, i would select that combination.

i would hope i could find a ss amp that didn't have the obvious signature of transistors.

Adcom sez:

The preamp signal is smaller,more delicate and fragile

No it isn't. Although yr thinking *should* be logical, it so happens that the line signal is usually higher than what goes into the amp. There's attenuation involved in the preamp, remember? And most amps are overdriven with the standard 2V output from a cdp, for example:).
Cheers

Alright- I'll bite- The reason tube preamps are often preferred over transistors is that they loose less of the signal. Transistors are pretty good at loosing low level detail so if you have transistor preamp driving a tube amp you will be missing a lot more of the signal: once the detail is lost you can't make it up downstream.

A better illustration of this principle is using a cheap microphone with an excellent recorder or a really fabulous mic with a cheap machine. The latter will turn out a better recording every time: you can't make up for lost detail downstream.