Parasound Halo A23 tube pre-amp pairing
Greetings and a happy new year to all audiogonzos!
I'm building up a two-channel system and am looking for some direction. Right now I am running:
Sonore microRendu -> Metrum Musette -> Rotel RC850 -> Rotel RB850 -> Ohm Walsh Tall 1000's.
I want to replace the Rotel RB850 with a Parasound Halo A23 - it seems to hit a sweet spot for price + enough current to drive the Ohms + overall sound quality + fits in the cabinet it needs to fit in.
I would like to replace the RC850 with a tube linestage. I have some exposure to tube components, and I find the analog timbre attractive. By "analog timbre" I mostly mean presence, and lack of glare or harshness.
At some point we may upgrade the Musette, which seems thin-ish with the Rotels, but we'll see what it sounds like after the power amp / pre-amp upgrades.
We listen to a lot of choral music, a lot of acoustic jazz, a lot of classical music, a lot of acoustic musics of all kinds. A fair amount of rock pop and blues, but nothing really noisy. A more than average amount of Afro-Cuban and Afro-other. We don't listen at really high volume levels, nothing you can't have a conversation over.
We really notice (in a positive way) nice percussion transients, rich and lifelike vocal tone, accurate acoustic instrument timbres. We really notice (in a negative way) shrill high-register voices, and thin or harsh string or piano tone.
Budget for the pre is $1500 or less. Pick of the litter so far for new gear is the Quicksilver 2015 linestage (no remote, 12au7's). Used stuff I've stumbled across that seems good and is in our budget includes Audible Illusions Modulus L1, CJ PV 10AL, and a Herron VTSP-1.
What think you?
Many thanks in advance for your thoughts and comments, all are appreciated!
All the best -