SS Pre-Amp / Tube Amp

I use a solid-state preamp with my vacuum tube amps in the reference system for my audio company. I chose this particular solid-state preamp because, other than a slight leanness, it is extremely neutral, as a reference should be (I was able to eliminate that leanness later, to my delight). Solid-state amps usually have high damping factors, and tend to offer overdamped bass--dry and unnatural-sounding, IMO. An extreme example of this was a friend who had Klipsch Cornwalls and drove them with a Crown DC-300A ss amp (known in the 70s for its high damping factor). We thought the speakers had no bass, but the problem was that the Crown amp was telling the 15" woofer to stop before it could overcome inertia and get all that mass to move! He bought a used ARC tube amp, and, voila! Low frequencies!

It's an unfortunate dilemma of life and physics that a low output impedance is necessary to eliminate frequency response variations, but that it strangles the bass via overdamping. You have to accept the compromise that works best for you in this regard. As for me, I'll take slightly underdamped over slightly overdamped anytime (until perfect bass becomes an option). Obviously, some tube amps are waaayy underdamped, and I find this as unacceptable as solid-state bass. As a learning example all you need to do is go to a live concert, pay careful attention to the bass, go home, listen to a live recording of similar music on your soid-state-amp stereo, and cry. BTW, once you become aware of the overdamped-bass problem, you realize it's not just a problem in the bass, but in all frequency ranges.

This is a perfect example of why you need a good dealer or trusted, experienced adviser for building a system; the answer to these types of questions is the "it depends".

I ran a klyne 6lx3p preamp with my Cary slam 100's driving my dunlavy sc3's and there was good synergy between them; I am a believer that a solid state preamp can work very well with tube power.

I agree with Audiokinesis. First you pick a speaker you love, then find a great sounding amp that is compatible with your speaker choice. That amp may be a solid state amp if higher power or ability to drive a difficult load becomes an important consideration (I personally don't like most high-powered tube amps, so if my speaker choice were different, I might prefer solid state amplification).

I've run my system, which has a single-ended triode tube amp, with a solid state preamplifier (Levinson No. 32). The sound was pretty good. However, I got a much better sound from a tube linestage (Emotive Audio Epifania) and tube phono (Viva Fono) combination. Does this mean tube preamplification is inherently better? I don't know. It just happens to be the case that this combination works better in my system. Perhaps there is a solid state component that would work even better.

The point is, the Levinson certainly worked well, but a tube alternative worked even better (albeit at a much higher price point).