HEre's what you need to do...Change as little variables as possible, first of all! If you change too many things at once, you won't know what you have/had!
I would pick up a passive preamp and try it(although it's not any different mostly than your CD player connected directly to your amp currently. Then you should try a very good active preamp as a comparison! You'll likely find the best one's of those in the "tube preamp" genre.
Bottom line, people can tell you all the feedback you want to hear, but you still won't know until you try experimenting With YOUR SYSTEM SETUP! You can always sell what you don't use later.
You can pick up passives that are exceptably transparent in the $400-500 range used (like McCormmack TLC, Pass Aleph L), and tube pre's (like Audio Research LS2/5/7/15, or better) for $500-700 range and up. Other tube options are Cary's older $1200 non-remote line preamp used at $600+(simply superb), Copelands $2k pre used at $1k range, etc.
good luck