whats the best pre amp to pair with Bryston 4b cubed? A

Glad to come across this thread.  I have a Bryston B135 Squared that feeds into Thiel 2.7 speakers.  Room is about 2000 cu ft with room treatments.  Wanting a lower noise floor (can hear speaker buzz with my ear about 2 feet from the speakers), I tried out the Bryston 4B3 and a VTL TL 2.5i preamp.  Sounded very nice..music had some extra solidity and the soundstage broaded compared to the B135.

I also ran the VTL 2.5i and used the B135 as an amp.  Imaging and breadth of soundstage was good but lost the solidity/weight.

Finally, I ran the B135 as a pre-amp into the 4B3.  While better than only using the B135, didn't quite match the TL 2.5i + 4B3 combination.

Decided to purchase the 4B3 and will likely go with VTL...although may ask to try the BP26 that's in the store before making the final call.

Decided to purchase the 4B3 and will likely go with VTL...although may ask to try the BP26 that’s in the store before making the final call.

@pacoinmass Be aware that VTL’s customer service has an awful reputation, and there are a lot of other great tube preamps out there — Atmasphere, Backert, VAC, Audio Research, LTA, etc. FWIW, and best of luck.

Waiting on delivery of 4b3 that I plan to connect to Plinius 9200 serving as pre-amp. If anyone has had experience merging Plinius and Brystom, would love your opinion.