Best Pre-Amp/Amp for Focal JMLab electra 920

In solid-state electronics, I should add that Ayre is another excellent choice. Sonically, I'd say it's somewhere between Musical Fidelity and Krell, and about as close as transistors come to a tube-like rendering of space.

Congratulations on purchasing a fine speaker! Its a matter of taste what kind of equipment you end up using. 920's are not a difficult speaker to drive so you have a wide range of choices between solid state, tube, and integrated amplifiers. My 920.1 are driven by Sim Audio P-4001 pre amp feeding Sonic Frontiers SFM-75 monoblocks (75 wpc). My father also has 920.1 being driven by Audio Refinement Pre2DSP pre/processor feeding a Audio Refinement Multi 5 power amp. Both systems sound very good even though they are very different. If I had a choice I would go with a YBA power and pre amp combo. By the way if your 920 speakers are not broken in yet the sound becomes much better after many and I mean many hours of break in. Good Luck!

Thanks for the opinions, everyone!

I think the speakers should have been broken into, since it's been owned by a very passionate and professional musicial, driven by Classe 100W mono blocks, he told me to run a test by holding a small piece of paper to the tweeter, that shows that the hardness might comes from the source that I am using. I believe I'll get better sound when I get the right amp and CD player.

:) will keep everyone posted on my progress.

(PS: really into the idea of tube, now thinking of borrow a set from friend to test it out before I buy it).

Good luck in choosing the right amplifiers. Remember with tube designs eventually you will have to replace tubes which can be costly. I am not saying that you shouldn't consider them just keep that in mind when making a decision. Respectfully the so called "paper to the tweeter test" is completely incorrect. It will not tell you that your system is hard sounding or what is causing the "hardness". If a system sounds "hard" putting paper in front of the tweeter will only make it sound like a "hard" system with paper in front of the tweeters. "Hardness" could be from a number of things from bad ac power, cables, source, acoustics, ect... Best wishes!

thanks, Kentb, actually I just figured out the reason, it's the power!

Beside the hardness, I also found the static noise in the background, especially when playing classical music. Everything is GONE after I installed the Berlkin PF60 power console yesterday! I am so happy.

Regarding the amp, still hunting around for the right one...