Looking for warm tube preamp (should pair well with Pass power amp), budget $6000

Any opinion on evo 400 pre ?

@bhvf you got it bud. Theres a 300b beautiful looking Aric power amp that someone has been trying to sell for a good 2-3 years I think. Originally for $8k and now hes down to $5500 ish and apparently msrp was $14k. It is really brutal and risky.

You are right with  sachs the risk is way lower since his preamps are only around $3k or less and he has a pretty well respected name so your are only going to take a 20-30% hit on it.

I don't think Pass is as warm as people make it out to be. Or it could be im craving lots of warmth cause I love the sound of my crack OTL head amp which is very warm. ATCs are very very neutral (I feel they might even be a touch bright) and so that doesn't help things. ARC known to be neutral as well. So you have neutral speakers, preamp, maybe slightly warm power amp.

VTL (from extensive research) is very neutral and going after that SS/tube hybrid sound. Its actually shockingly tough to find someone who makes a high quality euphonic rich sounding tube amp. It seems most people want neutrality.

I sent an email to Roy at tubes4hifi to see if he has any recommendations for a warm sound out of the sp14 (maybe some kind of mods).

@laaudionut issue with aric is resale value is not too good so if i end up not liking it im screwed. Maybe i can try one of his lower end preamps.

@wolf_garcia thats great man, have you compared to any other tube preamps?

@retiredfarmer thanks

@ghdprentice its just too bad all the shindo preamps have phono stage. I prefer pure line stages since I don't use vinyl.

@russbutton Should I build a SP14?

And btw I got a 6550 tung sol coming in Ill put in the ARC.

 @tricon_dave  High praise for Aric indeed. I was actually going to go with the motherlode before ending up with the ref5se. In hindsight that probably was the better choice for me sonically. Aric is a super nice guy and I love how transparent he is about his builds and what components he uses.

Got it thanks @decooney 

@rocray If I could have gotten motherlode used I would have to for sure!

After my research currently im focused on either a Shindo or CJ. It seems one of these will give me the warmth and euphonics I am looking for.

Thanks so much guys for your many suggestions really appreciate it.

@fertguy  Did you find bhk sig pre to be a warm pre? From what i read its more neutral?

@erik_squires My understanding are the pass pre amps are fairly neutral sounding and of course SS so will lose out some of the staging properties of tube preamps.

@audioman58 Messaged don today. Definitely something im considering or maybe build the sp14 kit its based on. Not sure if his preamp is warm / rich.

@pesky_wabbit I'll look into that. I also heard changing the 6550 tube to Tung Sol from the sovtek leads to a much warmer sound. Going to find a Tung sol off ebay.

@ghdprentice @runwell  Interesting. Definitely didn't think of that. I wanted the power since my speakers are really not sensitive but ARC amps might work well. Are ARC amps more neutral and natural sounding rather than bloomy and wet?

@hilde45 Yup its not just tubes, the caps, circuit design, chokes etc can impact the tonal quality.

@rocray @cmach  Is Aric's gear warm sounding?

@aricaudio thanks for the clarification and sorry you are right msrp was $11,500 on the 300b amp. I have nothing but respect for you and your work.

@retiredfarmer not seeing that 4 chassis pre.

@avanti1960 Based on what @decooney said I feel I might actually really like the Cary sound.

Oh and I don't need phono.

@ghasley I am using this for my ns5000 speakers. Cabling is from QED.. the xt40s and kimber hero interconnects. Dac is denafrips terminator with v2 board.

I would like to hear the shindo for sure.

Impressive you liked ref5se more than ref6 ! Did you find the ref5se more rich / musical  and ref 6 too analytical ?

Have you explored VAC at all ?

Still searching. I am right now looking hard at cary 98 and 05 and CJ act2 series 2 or ls17.

1 more criteria is I must have a remote.

Any thoughts on prima luna evo 300/400 ? I heard a prima luna evo 300 integrated with my headphones and was blown away by the sound.

Working out a deal possibly on a CJ ET5, will let you know if it goes through.

The luxman Cl 38uc looks nice too.