Diferent brands for Source to Pre and Power?

[snowball]

From your experience is using a source of a different brand with pre-power amplifiers of the same brand a bad choice?

ie:

ayre cx-7e and classe?

classe cp 700 and ayre?

rcd-1072 and ayre?

ayre cx-7e and rotel?

[grit]

I don't care to mix, but that is ONLY personal preference, and part of that is appearance. So, don't take too much of this to heart. In my opinion, a component is probably tested/voiced with a company's own other components, and thus will sound best with it's oww brand. I doubt Ayre bought a Rotel to see if they matched well.

So, if I enjoy the way a particular brand sounds, I'd lean toward all of their stuff. I may not buy it all at once, but I try to have a long-term goal. Right now, I'm going from Rotel and probably aiming to land with Classe.

My other reason for that thought is this: Lets say you own all Rotel gear, and add a Classe CD player that sounds great. Two years later, you buy a Krell amp that you love, but you decide the Classe CD player doesn't sound as good with the Krell amp as you'd hoped. The obvious argument to that though is you'd buy an amp that did sound good with your present setup.

One other thing I don't quite understand yet is power output levels via interconnetcs. I think some source components have a different power output than others (as in it's not standard). That being the case, could any mismatching cause a problem? Can someone else with more knowledge please comment?

[dyazdani]

I tend to make purchases on more of an individual basis. I buy an amp for the particular way it sounds, same with pre-amp, CDp, etc. They all build on each other whether from the same manufacturer or not.

A system made up of all the same brand might not be the sound you're looking for just because one component is. Auditioning goes a long way here.

[David Meek]

Danish nailed it for me, also. While keeping things in a similar style appeals to me, the ability to "dial in" the sound by putting the component in that sounds best to me appeals even more.