Are my amp and preamp mismatched?

I always thought you could not go wrong with both from same mtg. until I owned a McCormack RLD 1 along with a DNA 125 amp.   It was a good sounding combo, perhaps better than my previous Mc C15 driving the 125,  but it just didn't blow me away.  I used the RLD for a few years and then bought a c-j Classic 2SE.   The RLD, was the bottleneck of my system all along.....go figure.    I almost replaced my speakers and fortunately I didn't.....   That preamp made it sound  like I had better speakers, the difference was that pronounced.