Amp Basics: Tube Preamp w/Solid State Power Amp.

The only other thing I'd add to John's advice is to be aware of that if you mate a high gain power amp ( a separate issue from power rating ) to a high gain preamp, you can have too little range of effective volume control before things get too loud. It's not a fatal flaw, inline attenuators can ameliorate that with no sonic penalty. The Prima Luna's 12db is pretty middle of the road in the gain department, shouldn't be any cause for concern with the majority of amps you'd pair it with.

If you don't want to worry about matching impedence, you should look for a little device callled a Burson buffer. It would make the output impedence of your preamp look more compatible with say a low input impedence ss amp. Pretty cool.You can google Burson buffer and get the info.

Thanks, lots of help. The information I was looking for.

Do a search for tube preamps, there's been quite a bit of discussion on them.

I run a TAD150sig tube pre into a McCormack DNA1 power amp. This has been a very good combo in many folks systems...including mine. I run power-hungry 4 ohm speakers & the gain-volume control issue hasn't been an issue in my system.

McCormack power amps have a great reputation & can easily be had for 1-2K, depending on the power you need & it's upgrade status. Steve McCormack will do upgrades on the amp if you want..this gives you some upgrade headroom down the road without switching to another amp.

If you're looking ofr an overall primer on audio system basics...Robert Harley has a Guide to High End Audio book that is useful.

I agree with Jmcgrogan2. One thing to add is if your preamp does not have a cathode follower, then you'll want to keep your cabling between the pre and power pretty short. Depending on the cable, longer runs could roll off the high frequencies.

If the pre does have a cathode follower in the ouput stage, then longer cable runs should be OK.

best
John