SS against Tube Preamp

It's still hard to say that combo will work. Those amps you heard, if they were "tubed power-amps", I don't think a combo SS/tube would do the same. Maybe a just a little taste of it, but not much.

Mark Levinson and Krell are not necessarily the best examples of high quality solid state amps.

A tube amp will make more of a difference in better sound.

My experiences after owning 3 ARC tube amps, 1 hybrid Counterpoint, Wolcott and now the CAT, is that the tube preamp brings far more benefit to the decays, ambience and harmonics. The key is to find a preamp that does this. And sadly only a small percentage of tube preamps can nail this. I have dismissed more tube preamps than any other component in the chain because this link is so critical to the 3D performance. And far too many botch this up! No solid state preamp will ever come close to the best performing tube preamps in this regard.

The true is I have listened several Hi End systems using Mark Levinson, Krell, Classe and other high quality SS that don't sound as good as a Cayin tube intregated or Rogue Audio gear. I am not the only one who has noticed that. I don't know where is the secret but some entry level tube gears can match ultra high end SS gears.

My experiences echo this statement for the last 25 years. Krell, Levinson, Classe systems don't come close to nailing the strengths of even a middle priced tube-based system with the "right" components.

Wow Fox, balls of steel you have.

I am with you on your take here.

Yes, that is what I say. I have been in front of several SS ultra Hi-End systems that cost a lot of $$$$$ which can not reach the sound level of some entry level tube gears. I listened a Rogue audio tube integrated with an Arcam CD player, the speakers were Epos bookshelves with Straight Wire cables, the sound was to die for, and everything was less than $ 3000.
Jorge.