I have had two occasions where the amp and preamp were from the same manufacturer and in each case they sounded better when i made a change .
First time i had a Mc Intosh C15 and 7100. I took the C15 out and replaced it with a McCormack RLD 1 That combo was pretty good, but I wanted to have a matched amp/pre so I bought a McCormack DNA 125 and it was even better. As good as it was , I thought the preamp was the bottleneck, so I demo'd a Conrad Johnson Classic 2SE .... the c-j / mccormack combo was really a great combo, in fact selling that DNA 125 was one of my big audio regrets.
I still have the Classic and am driving some 40w Quicksilvers and I think Im at the point of diminishing returns . That said if I were spending big $$$ to upgrade I would probably audition matched gear and would even consider a high end integrated, elimiinating preamp / amp matching altogether.
First time i had a Mc Intosh C15 and 7100. I took the C15 out and replaced it with a McCormack RLD 1 That combo was pretty good, but I wanted to have a matched amp/pre so I bought a McCormack DNA 125 and it was even better. As good as it was , I thought the preamp was the bottleneck, so I demo'd a Conrad Johnson Classic 2SE .... the c-j / mccormack combo was really a great combo, in fact selling that DNA 125 was one of my big audio regrets.
I still have the Classic and am driving some 40w Quicksilvers and I think Im at the point of diminishing returns . That said if I were spending big $$$ to upgrade I would probably audition matched gear and would even consider a high end integrated, elimiinating preamp / amp matching altogether.