I wanted to take the time to sincerely thank everyone for their recommendations and advice. Each one of your suggestions was appreciated. In some cases, such as the Modwright LS100, and a number of others, while I was leaning heavily towards those options, I could find none available that weren't considerably above my $2k budget.
Sometimes solutions pop up out of nowhere. I was just able to purchase a wonderful preamp made by Triode Lab in Canada, the Triode Lab Au preamp. I've long been an admirer of their products, and I was able to purchase it a great price from the original owner, including a complete set of NOS Mullard tubes. It sounds superb with my Aric Audio 300B SET power amp, in my system and all would be well. Except, and there is a BIG except.
I had mentioned when I began this discussion that remote control was a requirement, and it was. The equipment is in a rack across the room and, to even attempt to access it, it requires not only going all the way across the room, but also, first negotiating my way out from behind a large desk which involves very tight quarters. Add in that I have somewhat limited mobility due to two bad knees, and you can see why remote control was a necessity.
While reading through (and occasionally re-reading) all of the comments in this discussion I noted a couple people who mentioned that they had overcome the need for a remote by using volume controls built into their streaming software. All of a sudden, I thought I could go the same route, as I exclusively use Roon, and I firmly believed that it also offered volume control. I was further convinced as, when I used my iPad Pro to connect to Roon in a small system at our family place up north, there is clearly a very good volume control. I "thought" that volume control was being provided by Roon, but have now learned that it is provided by the iPad when connected to Roon. Roon, does not appear to offer any means of volume control other than via DSP, and obviously, neither my preamp, or anything in my system supports that. So, despite the great sound and performance I am getting from I have apparently completely botched things up since there is no remote way to control the preamp, as I mistakenly thought. It's pretty clear 6that I have made a major mistake that will be very difficult to rectify.
Also impacted is something I had just decided to do to assemble a dream electronics pairing. Years ago, while in Montreal at an audio show, I hear the very Triode labs preamp that I now own, paired with a set of Triose Lab's monoblocks. The sound was absolutely magical, through a pair of high efficiency speakers that I had some familiarity with. The longer I listened, the more heartbreakingly beautiful the sound was, listening to my selection of test tracks. Just this past weekend, I received a very nice influx of cash from an old friend paying off a debt of quite a few years ago. That would set me up top buy a pair of lovely Triode Lab monoblocks on the occasion when they appear, and at a semi reasonable price. I refer to amps from a few years back, not to much the very high end offerings they seem to have mostly been concentrating on recently. But the lack of remote situation seems to have also likely scuttled that dream.
I truly believed that Roon offered volume control, and I made a major mistake, and now will be paying the price.
At any rate, the failure was all mine, but I wanted to again thank everyone for taking the time to contribute to my preamp journey. It's endlessly appreciated.
