The pre-amp was a vintage (about 25 years old) Klyne.....which I believe is an absolutely wonderful solid state pre-amp for the price point and for my level of "audiophileness". It was repaired and is back to sounding great. I blame myself more than a component failure. My hope is to have my kids sell this at my estate sale someday, so I probably should have done some preventative maintinence that others have suggested on this forum for high end equipment that they plan to keep for decades. It was a reasonable repair cost. So if I die soon enough, it still might have been the most cost effective. There is a clear pyrex like top to this unit. I did notice that there was some "fogging" over one of the boards before it died....actually at least a year before it died.....so probably my bad not sending it in before it had full cardiac arrest.