tube pre amp to match Sim audio w-3 or w-5

I have a W-3 and use a Sonic Frontiers Line 3- but it's a bit out of your stated price range. An SFL-2 would be an excellent second choice, and would give you exactly the attributes you mention above- good luck!

fwiw, im using a bottlehead foreplay with my sim audio i-5 integrated. it has really smoothed out, in the best possible way, what the sim delivers. i believe the sim's strength is it's amp, not it's preamp, and the foreplay, as others here have said previously, is a real giant killer. just rolled in some amperex bugle boys and my gosh, what a beautiful sound. anyways, supposedley it's real easy to build, but im lazy and bought mine preassembled. i think there's at least one for sale here for a lot less than you want to spend. might be worth a try.

good luck!

Do try the Sonic Frontiers. I used a SFL-1 for several years with a simaudio 4070. The N.E.W P3[single-ended triodes] was special on the sim also. However N.E.W. is out of business and the pre had no remote. Cary can repair them though, I've heard. Good luck.

Thanks guys, all of your feedback will be taken into consideration
JCW