Dynaudio Speakers With Tube Amps

I drive my Dynaudio 52SE + Sub20A with a McIntosh C2200 tube preamp and aMC252 SS amp. The sound is enveloping and very realistic. I was using Rotel gear previously and the new Mc gear helped tot ame the overall brightnees, although it was not that bad. I know this is not the answer to your question but wanted to let you know half of the equation.

Hi,
I heard a pair of Dynaudio Special 25's (8" two way) with an Audio research VS55 6550 based tube power amp driving them with an Audio Research SP16 solid state (SS) preamp and a Jolida tubed CD player as the source a few years ago at Soundex in Willow Grove, PA in one of their very large, architecturally and acoustically designed and treated rooms. It was fabulous.

The CD player was the front end (your terms); not the preamp. and certainly not the power amp., since the front end is only the source and the front end never drives the speakers in a separates based system. Usually the only time that the front end drives the speakers is a receiver hooked up to the speakers where the built in AM or FM tuner is the source of an audio signal to reproduce. If a tape deck or turntable or a CD player were connected into the receiver, that or they would be the source(s) along with the AM/FM tuner in the receiver of course.

Driving any brand of speaker that is of average voltage sensitivity, in the high 80's let's say, with a tube power amp or tube integrated amp is fine if it has some kahunas under the hood in terms of current delivery and power supply size and capacitance / storage reserve as the ARC has and then some. Dynaudio is no exception to that guide.

Some speakers simply do not work well with tube power or integrated amps due to their impedance curves or the type of tubes used or the circuitry of the gear, etc.: OTL's especially in certain ways are very "picky".

Hope this helps.