Pink Floyd said..... Is there anybody out there?

I have a Schiit SYS which is passive and retains the original sound of whatever your amp is. That expensive digital one you mention would make me uneasy because I would wonder if it is altering the sound of your Torii. I would think the reason one would want a Torii in the first place is because of the way it sounds, so it would seem to me that if you were using that digital device as a preamp would defeat the purpose of a Torii unless there's something you must know.

I'm just amazed though there are no Torii Jr owners who have never compared their Torii to a single ended triode. You would think someone would have something to say.

BTW, I had the Schiit Freya Plus which has passive, solid state and tube mode. I would never add a solid state preamp to a tube amp like the Torii Jr. That's basically killing the tube sound. The Freya in tube mode is very bright and analytical sounding. I would not describe it anything like warm and lush. The direction companies go with tubes these days is brightness and ultra detail but it can wear on the ears after a while IMO.

I mostly listen to mild jazz, so the little Zen triode tends to have a sweeter, smoother sound. The main reason I had questions on the Torii Jr is because I'm trying to drive my open baffles in parallel with the same sound signature as the little Zen but with more power. The newer version of the Torii Jr appears to be more in that direction, but nobody has spoken to help confirm that. It is a push, pull but my understanding is that it has 2nd order harmonics which is why I'm so curios now. In theory, I would think this would give it a cleaner, tighter sound but I just don't know. I've never heard a newer Torii Jr before.

@drD

My MiniDSP SHD is an all digital piece, so my thinking was to keep the digital signal going  to another digital item then to the Tube  Torii Jr. so the only tube sound was from the Tori Jr

The reason I choose the Tori Jr was that my room is 17X 20 with 10 ft walls that  then goes up to 14 ft via a half tube ceiling, so I have a lot of cubic volume  to pressurize

So that is how I saw it  ???????   one makes a lot of assumptions on their journey in HIFI

Hi Lin, the Schiit SYS is only a $49 device but I’ve tested it with all my tube amps with extreme scrutiny. The main reason I did this is because my ST-70 does not have an attenuator. With KT88 tubes this amp has a very bright, open sound and may be too bright for many. The brightness or colored tube sound goes up even more so with all my tube preamplifiers. There’s also a very common floor noise because the gain on the ST-70 can not be attenuated. To fix this, I use the SYS to attenuate the floor noise with my speakers which are very sensitive. Tube amps pick up all sorts of noises and is super common.

The SYS in no way shape or form alters the sound signature. Any change of sound is a placebo effect as far as I’m concerned. Since the ST-70 still sounds brighter with all my tube preamps, I decided to use the Schiit SYS as the ST70’s primary preamp. The results of this inexpensive $49 passive preamp outperform all my tube preamps costing as much as $1800 because it reduces the additional brightness that the tube preamps add. So what’s really happening is it is allowing the original sound signature of the ST70 on its own to play through which rolls it off better.

Solid state preamps are solid state and will add their own sound signature unlike a SYS which allows the original source to sound faithful, even tubes. You guys can add whatever you like, but solid state will never produce the the spatial separation tubes can and that’s a fact. The only solid states I’ve tested to date that sound indistinguishable from the finest tube amps are the Nelson Pass single ended First Watt solid state amplifiers which require sensitive speakers. Most of the solid state gear otherwise kills that beautiful spatial separation of the instruments being played which I have no doubt a Torii Jr. produces. This is why I absolutely can’t stand listening to solid state unless it’s for rock music. All I’m saying is why buy and integrated amplifier like a Torii Jr only to put a solid sate preamp in front of it. You guys can do whatever you like, but IMO, it’s like buying a Mclaren F1 and stuffing towels into the air intake so it can’t breath.

Geno, thank you for sharing that. I’m open to your thoughts. You have my curiosity to research this preamp. I’d sure love to hear a solid state as good as you mention. I must say the First Watts are remarkable. We are working with an F3 SIT3 and F6 currently.