Tubed Pre match with a Spectron Musician IIISE?

All I can say is that altough the Bent TAP, a tremendous passive TVC-based pre, sounds great with the Mark 2, the LS 36.5 does nothing but add realism and tonality to take the combo from great to nearly perfect. If you've read the reviews and feedback the LS 36.5 is dead quiet, let alone the fact that it's tubes. It loses nothing here to the basically nonexistent Bent TAP "noise". The synergy with the slightly warmside-of-neutral Spectron is beyond waht I would have expected. I am amazed each time I turn on the combo...really. Why I want to go monoblock with the Spectron is purely dedcadence, I guess. I'm assuming I'll not fix what clearly ain't broken!! :)

All this being said, I can't comment on the other pres in this list cuz i haven't heard them in this setup...just the FYI that the 36.5 is basically as quiet as a passive, with all the magic of Dan's incredible tube section.

Ted

thanks for the response.

Thanks Tedmbrady. Your response is very helpful.

I used Herron VTSP-3 tube pre with Spectron , connect with RCA interconnect . Extremely good results. Better than ARC Ref 3 in my setup (more airy & detail , more musical , more dynamic as well) .

I am using the BAT VK31SE with my Spectron MIIISE with excellent result. In fact, according to Simon in Spectron, they uses BAT preamp for testing. They have very good sound and imped. matching between BAT and Spectron. I am extremely happy with this pair up..