Preamp... Solid State or Tube

The Manley Shrimp and Jumbo Shrimp are nice tube preamps with very low output impedance and reasonable (11.8db) gain. I have a Shrimp driving my new Firstwatt F7 which has 10kohm input impedance, quite low so my tube preamp options were limited, especially for the budget ($1k used) I had in mind. 

Maybe take a look at Backert Labs Rumba or Rythm pre amps. Also look at Zesto Audio. They too have tubes. 

For solid state, I'd suggest a Classe' Sigma SSP. It can do both surround home theater and two channel. It has a great interface and can be controlled via iPad and iPhone. 

McIntosh C1100, your search is over!

@sergiohm, Looks like with C1100, McIntosh thought of (almost) everything. The decision to exclude decoding of high resolution digital formats – including DSD files is beyond me at this price point.  

At $13K it's out of my budget, but it definitely begs an audition even if I can't afford it :-)

There's too many nice sounding preamps to own anything but a few of them. I've owned a Threshold T3, a Threshold T3i, a BAT VK5i, VK30, VK40, VK20, Forte 4A, Coda 04r, 02, 01p, ARC LS5, just for starters. I preferred the BAT pre's the most, and The Threshold's next, but they were each fabulous sounding preamps, all mated to SS amps from Plinius, to Pass, BAT, on and on. Now I own an Inspire LP2 mated to an Inspire fire bottle KT88 set amp by Dennis Had. So much gear, so little time and money. Over 20 years I've only owned a few products I didn't care for, one being an ARC LS8 I believe the model was...it wasn't here long enough for me to remember the model number...enjoy the listening journey.