tube pre amp with tube / SS /hybrid power amp ?

05-30-08: Chadnliz
My father has on order a Aesthetix Atlas hybrid amp that we demoed with a Audio Research ref 3 (same pre as he owns) and the match is sonic heaven.atleast ith his Vandersteens.

Hey Chad, did you get a chance to compare the Aesthetix Atlas with the ARC HD-220 in the same system? I'm just curious as these two amps would seem to make natural competitors. I would think the ARC HD-220 would mate better with the ARC Ref 3, but this may not be so.

Cheers,
John

Milen007,
I am not sure what this 10x, stuff is about with damping factor above, but what most need to look at with matching a good TUBE to Solid stated device iE: Tube Pre to a SS AMP.. Is the Impedance factor... This would be better to have from what many say at least 10 times the impedance at your amp inputs over what the output impedance is at the preamps outputs..

But normally if you stick with a Tube pre having 1000 ohms or less output you theoretically should be able to drive even many SS amps with a input impedance of 10,000 ohms, or 10 k ohms.

I would normally say look at conrad johnson or several other tube pres putting out like 50 ohms up to about 600 ohms, and you should be just about safe with any SS amp you chose, however this is kinda the Technical side of what many consider "Synergy" being an actual value matched to help you get good electrical synergy between your components..

However the other type "Synergy" can be simply one flavor of sound feeding another for the extra musical balance you seek as well, and that synergy will have to be decided by you if you like one combination or not.

Good luck, and by the way I am not a tech, but somebody can attempt to correct my above assumptions with better detail.

That 10X's impedence matching rule is VERY conservative, IMHO. Most of the credit for the 10X rule goes to Victor Khemenko of BAT. However, others, like ARC, recommend at least 30X.
From my experiences, the higher levels are much, much better. Yes, I suppose you could get by with 10X's, but I find that 100X-300X sounds better.

Cheers,
John

Jmcgrogan2
By the way I totally agree with you.. and have found that is a very conservative rating, hit or miss.. And only reason I said "Theoretically" was to tell the original poster exactly my point as to why people keep coming up with this 10x factor that flies around.. Whether even that is optimal is questionable.

No I didnt demo the ARC model but to be honest the amps performance was so pleasing that even if the ARC performed very well it would have just served to cloud the issue.