Absolutely love my McIntosh C-2300! Very tube rolling friendly but especially attached to 1950's European Long Plates, Mazda, Mullard and Amperex all very good!
Personally, I would work backwards from your speakers. Find the best amp for your speakers, and then find a preamp that mates well with your amplifier and has the features that you need.
Can't believe no one said this one. Prima Luna
DiaLogue Premium I'm a huge fan of bang of buck. This is one of the biggest in preamps. Just read the reviews...enough said.
While I’m an ARC fanboy, I know that preamps are only one piece of the puzzle. Speakers, amps, wires, spinners, tubes, ears, etc all make a difference.
VAC Master, on a more robust budget, and VAC Renaissance 5 on a tighter budget. Both are extremely natural and musical. Mates great with both tube and solid state amps as they are transformer coupled at input and output. Highly recommended!
@caphill I was only referring to the preamp. At that price level, you would be able to get a 1 off custom project. CAT is especially known for doing custom.
I like Soulution and Boulder for amps but not much else.
Other than speakers and very large power rated amps, there's not much benefits beyond $10k per component anyways...
Building a good room, assuring good clean ample electrical, and matching components are all that's needed.
All the extra money gets you is a little room to mess up and sound decent...
I say PS Audio Signature PreAmp, it’s $6000.00 but worth it. It works great even with high efficiency speakers. Mine are 97db efficient and there are several YouTube videos about the making and the sound.
I can not recommend Best preamps because that company went out of business years before I could afford one. Sometimes you can find a used one on Ebay for a cheap and may be worth a go to find out for yourself first hand. Why a Best preamp? There are so many good ones today, why bother?
Unlimited budget could mean a call to Naim Statement gears, Boulder, Tidal, MBL, Soulution, CH Precision, Burmester, D’Agostino Momentum series, etc. They can hit close close to a million dollars for the shoe setup and system.
When you said unlimited budget, how far do you want to go? Are you looking to get just the linestage preamp or the entire setup and system? What are your current setup and system? Did you already have a setup or trying to start from scratch? Without knowing the rest of your gears, If you already have a setup, it's hard to make recommendations.
The latest McIntosh C52 is a sleeper. Remember you have to use the included equalizer to compare with other more ´´ tiped up ’´ preamps out there. Makes a good match with brighter speakers like Focal or Magico.
Some of the preamps that have been mentioned have output impedances that are too high at some frequencies to be optimal (or even suitable) for use with some power amps. Some of the preamps that have been mentioned have input impedances that are too low to be optimal (or even suitable) for use with some source components. Some of the preamps that have been mentioned have too much gain to be optimal (or even suitable) for use with some combinations of source components, power amps that have high gain, and speakers that have high efficiency. Some even have too little gain to be suitable for use in some systems.
An indication of what associated components the preamp would be used with would result in answers that are more focused.
Everything depends upon your ROOM. All the pre-amps mentioned here are wonderful in some ways and not so much in others--see the qualifying comments supplied with the recommendations.
Your ROOM is the main determiner of how your total system sounds to you.
Have your dealer loan you several with your existing system, should you be happy with it, and you will figure out what is the "best" pre-amp FOR YOU in YOUR ROOM with whatever you have in the rest of the system and with the music you like to listen to.
Kind of like asking, "which tires are the best for my car?" Answer: It depends.
The world today is a bit more complicated than it used to be. A person has to be willing to read and study and then experiment to find the "best" of anything. Naturally, tires are a bit easier to pick than pre-amps, which don't cause you to crash your car. Tires either perform under given conditions on a given car or they don't.
Pre-amps, on the other hand, can be measured for performance, but "sound" is subjective.
Ayre is fantastic, Stereophile Class A and Made in USA. Levinson and I heard a top line SIMAUDIO Moon that sounded fantastic. There are lots of great choice. Read Stereophile recommended components
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