Tube Pre-amp Suggestions.

To the poster asking about the dehavilland. I have an ultraverve iii. Kara made it for around $3-4k a few years ago at my email request. Said she was still making a few until her parts ran out. Absolutely silent and velvety smooth into my Pass xa.25 and klipsch la scalas. No hiss through the horns. 

I have found that running my dac through a tube preamp sounds good, but I often need to listen briefly (30 minutes or less). The dac has preamp capability. Would it make sense to focus on a pre that can simply pass the dac signal through when I don’t have time to properly warm the tubes? Several of the preamps I looked at have pass thru, but they all use the tubes even for that. (My setup happens to be all  balanced.)

I have a sonnet Pasithea DAC with built in analog preamp that I prefer to run without either of the 2 preamps I had tried.

first was a Don Sachs model 2. While I really liked this preamp for it big spatial and full sound, I felt like I lost something in the micro details of the music.

second was a Halo Serene, which I.bought based on reviews saying that it was transparent and would not change the sound character. I didn’t find this accurate and I never did take to it.

BTW - The reason behind adding the preamp was for me to incorporate a turntable into the system. Otherwise I would have stayed without it.

However, With my prior DAC, the Rockna Wavelight, I will say that adding the Don sachs Pre was a substantially positive move. Much better with DS than without.

If I had to summarize this all, I’d say it very much depends on your particular gear and its all just a best guess until you try it and hear it for yourself.

Good luck

@kds Since you seem to be pretty open to possibilities, what about an Audio Research REF 75 stereo amp plus their REF 3 preamp?  A guy in CAN has both here for sale.  They are already at reasonable prices and he is accepting offers.  Both of these items are classics and will always have resale value.  Depending on where you negotiated the sale, you could very likely always get your money back if they weren’t for you.  If you aren’t familiar with Audio Research tube power, those 75 wpc would essentially have the same output as your current CODA 400wpc and also most likely be more musical.  I compared my REF 75 to a McIntosh 450wpc amp and they had the exact same output with the REF75 being more musical.  I tried a CODA amp one time compared to my REF 75 in my system and it did provide more control in the bass but overall I found it a bit on the bright side for my taste.  It was an older model and less power than yours so definitely not making a judgement of CODA, just ARC tube power v/s solid state.  The REF 3 pre pairs perfectly.  If you don’t like the black handles, I didn’t when I owned this exact pairing, you can easily remove them and paint to match.  It was a basic Krylon color that matches exactly.  You are in a fun spot with growing your system as amps and preamps are easy purchases and sales so have fun and good luck!

All good stuff, thank you!