To add to my previous comment. Found a used TLC-1 online for $400 with great "review" comments by John Atkinson, detailing the feature/attributes of this unit. At this price and an SMc upgrade, one could have a tremendous preamp for $3K! With quality matching much more expensive units.
Reccomend a good preamp for me.
I have nixed the preamp for a while now with using only a DCS Rossini DAC going direct. I have that in the back of my room and a 10M pair of balanced cables that run to my various amps I use. I have been getting back into vinyl again and even a cassette player so I am in need of a preamp that will have at least one balanced input and 2 more RCA inputs. I have been trying different amps and speakers lately also and think I will land on some kind of lower powered tubes and higher efficiency speakers. I used to have a few nice preamps years ago and I always remember thinking the preamp was a big piece of the puzzle the heart maybe of the system. PS Audio BHK looks good maybe or a Pass Preamp? I'm out of the loop on preamps.