Advice Sought on Upgrading my 2 Channel Audio

I barely post anywhere as I do alot of reading here and elsewhere that's been very helpful. I thought I would start my first thread as I need specific help pertaining to my system.

My system is only HT now and consists of a Classe ssp 25 and cd 1.5, Theta Dreadnaught II, Magnum Dynalab md100, and a Rotel dvd player. For HT it's fine for now but for 2 channel the Classe sounds too lean to me and would like to seek advice on what I can add to make the 2 channel audio more enjoyable.

I have a couple of ideas with 1, being to ad a preamp(tube or ss but I have no experience with tubes at all). Also from reading I heard if you use a tube pre with HT bypass, the tube life won't last long. Is this true with all tube pres or just a few? 2, sell the Classe 1.5 and ad a dac and use the Rotel as a transport.

My budget for a pre is around 2K used or new, give or take. If I ad a dac, then I would like to fund it with a sale of the cd player, if possible.

Hopefully I haven't left anything out and appreciate all opinions. Thanks,

James