@smodtactical I've talked with Aric and emailed back and forth. His stuff looks great and apparently sounds great but I can't get over what you said. Resale would be lucky to be 50% on a barley used piece. That's thousands of dollars in a matter of weeks. I'm not just talking about Aric's equipment alone, any of the more obscure builders will have the same issue until you get to Don Sachs or Supratek levels of hype. I wish they would offer a home trial, even if it had a small restocking fee (a couple hundred dollars at most). I suppose business is good enough without the trial so why would it be needed?
A local Pass dealer I know sells the VTL preamps mostly, rather than Pass' own. I can't imagine one really needs to warm up a Pass amp as it's already designed towards the warmer side but maybe try a used VTL 5.5 preamp. There's one on another classified website for $5k right now. No idea who the seller is or have any affiliation.