Best Preamp and Amp combination, interesting finding!!!

I always thought that the amp has a greater impact to sound quality, but my experiment proved otherwise.

Your experiment proves nothing. The more expensive preamp, less expensive amp combination happened to be the better option given the components you used. That will not always be the case.

 You simply cannot make a blanket statement like that based on two pre- power-amp combinations.

Hi viethluu,

So I agree with you regarding the preamp influence..

I have been involved by high end audio equipment since the beginning of the eigthies...

At that time the worldwide market niche and audiophiles education have established listening audioexperience reports within high end reviews..

We were talking about the value of the sources as priorities...

Pioneer like audioresearch , mark levinson or conrad jonhson have achieved numerous of preamp and their upgrade to improve subjective listening performance.

I remember of night comparison between Marklevinson Ml1, audioreseach  sp 6,sp 6a, sp6c  sp8 and sp 10 vs conrad jonhson premier two premier three ...and so on.

Basically there are complementatity or not...

Audioresearch design oriented with clarity, details and focus  and C0nradjohson appecied for aeration ,sounstage and natural treeble...these philosophie for each company has been maintened since the beginning..

The experience show that a link beetween a transistor amp linked with a tube preamp may be an advantage to combine the matter and weight of the note given by the pre to the bass acuracy of the transistor amp..

As a result it prooves far more difficult to bring into focus a good preamp vs an amp...it is a definite rule well known by the worldwide specialists..

To date ,preamp culture and know how has disepear since the input stage doesnot include anymore high range Phono MC and MM..

Marketing reasons to make savings have oriented the audio company to " simplify'" the design in bypassing preamp since high end is costly...

Vintage preamp unit like Conrad jonhson  Pv 10  a PV 11, Pv12A or premier series are among the best opportunity ta acquire universal preamp including phono or not..

Keep in mind that the hierarchie in hifi system is.

Source   

Preamp 

Amp

Loudspeaker.

Regards

Raymond

A great amp will reproduce, and increase  the horrors of a crappy preamp.

I always thought the same - that the amp is what makes the system sound better. After trying about 10 different preamps, ranging widely in price, I ended up loving my McIntosh C2300. With my speakers, I think it’s the part of the system that will never leave. 

So many logical answers fgit that data without fitting your conclusion. Three pop to mind:
1. Its a very good $1k amp and a so-so $3k amp2. You have impedance matching issues that one preamp solved and the other didn't3. the 1k amp solves a speaker match problem the 3k amp didn't (or vice-versa the 3k amp was less well matched, and apparently, speaker sensitive, which annoys me since it need not be so).
Just sayin'
Interesting finding though.