Tube pre, SS amp incompatibility, which amp 2 use?


I wanted to see how a tubed pre-amp would sound in my system so I purchased a Jolida Music Envoy pre-amp to mate with my McCormack DNA-1 amplifier. When I put the pre-amp in the system it would not work. After talking to Jolida, where Jerred helped me try various things, we came to the conclusion that they were just not compatible, since the Jolida works just fine with an old Marantz I have. The Jolida has in output impedance of 600 ohms. The McCormack has an input impedance of 100K ohms.

Next I emailed Steve McCormack asking his opinion, and he also gave various reasons for the failure, but after letting him know what was done in an attempt at making them work together, he also stated it may just be a compatibility issue.

Now I would like to get a different amp to try with the Jolida, but am a little weary of purchasing another just to find out that for one reason or another it will not work.

Since this is just to see if I would like what I hear, I don't want to put a lot of money into it. My speakers are 6 ohm Gershman Acoustics Sonograms and are 89db efficient, so I'm looking at an SS amp with good power for less than $1K.
Does anyone know of any amps I can look into that DO work with the Jolida, knowing for sure, that they will be compatible?
128x128abucktwoeighty

Showing 3 responses by unsound

The McCormack amps input impedance shouldn't be an issue. When Stereophile originally measured the McCormack its input sensitivity was greater than specified, which could be problematic with some tube pres typically high output, but this should typically only reduce the usability range of the volume control.
Just to rule out possible problems I'd try different interconnects (not for flavor, but for integrity). Just a hunch, but I'd hazard a guess that the Jolida is misbehaving.
Thanks Al. I can't explain why I missed that in very first sentence. Silly me.