Best Pre-Amp/Amp for Focal JMLab electra 920

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...

Hello again Jaguarcondor,

I am happy you've solved your problem. I know from experience how frustrating audio can be when you're trying to get rid of noise due to grounding issues, or can't pinpoint exactly whats wrong but know something isn't correct. When you decide on a power amplifier it is possible and quite frankly likely that it will draw too much current to plug into your filter. This isn't a bad thing it's just the nature of the beast. It may not sound good because the filter is choking needed current the amp is drawing. There are filters specially designed for the high current demands of power amplifiers if you so wish to have one. Try it out for yourself. Plugging the amp directly into it's own outlet might just sound best! Good luck with your continued search!