Pre with phono to mate with Nuforce?

I looked at the NuForce amps last year and had thought of matching them up with a Quad 99 preamp that I had.

The Quad has a decent phono stage and the tilt tone control is a nice feature. Over all I thought for the price it was a very good sounding unit.

Regards,
Todd

Ive used an Ear 834p it has tubes which can be a good option for a more relaxed sound with Nuforce amps.
Mike

Cary SLP 98P.

Thanks for your suggestions. When looking around my area (Minneapolis) I came across someone selling a VTL 2.5 preamp. I'm really thinking a tubed pre, to tame the brightness of the Nuforces. Any opinions on the VTL...or other tubed preamps w/ a built in phono I should entertain?

How are you using the NuForces? Are they well broken in, and are you leaving them on all the time?

How much are you willing to spend on the pre? I was all set to recommend the Parasound Classic 2100 until you mentioned VTL. It still might be a good choice.

Johnnyb53: The NuForces are well broken in and are left on all the time. I'll look into the Parasound...it looks VERY affordable. Have you heard it before? Any particular characteristic of this pre jump out at you?

05-27-09: Mdrummer01
Johnnyb53: The NuForces are well broken in and are left on all the time. I'll look into the Parasound...it looks VERY affordable. Have you heard it before? Any particular characteristic of this pre jump out at you?

Actually, I haven't heard the Parasound 2100, though I think there's a store in my town where I could give it a listen.

I was going by a recommendation from a long-time sales rep at Audio Advisor. When I was asking him about line stages about a year ago, he highly recommended this one--even over some tube-based alternatives around the same (or somewhat higher ) price. This particular sales rep is about my age with close to 40 years as an audio enthusiast, and we have similar tastes. We even both used the same obscure preamp for quite awhile--a VSP Straightwire II that was an all-out assault on the high end in its day, and set a very high bar in speed, neutrality, and fully fleshed-out musicality. I figure if he was used to the VSP and better, the Classic 2100 must be very competitive at its price, especially since the VSP phono stage is not an easy act to follow. IIRC he was pretty confident that this wasn't just the transferred phono stage from the ZPhono; he said it sounds a lot better.

And with AA's 30-day return policy, it's a pretty low-risk proposition to check it out in your own home.