https://www.transcendentsound.com/fixer.html
Friend built a different kit from them years ago and it was stellar for the money.
Upgrading preamp. Best for under $1K
I am planning on upgrading my preamp and was wondering what would be the best preamp for under $1K. Currently have the Rotel RC-995 with a B&K ST2140 amp and Vandersteen 2ci speakers. I like to stay with SS unless their is tube pre in that price range.
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This will be a big upgrade. It has tubes but in this unit they last a looooong time and are inexpensive to replace, and this one comes with the upgraded linear power supply, which is key. Read the reviews.
Best of luck. |
Tubes 4 Hifi has several excellent fully assembled tube preamps within budget: http://www.tubes4hifi.com/pre11.htm |
The Schiit Freya + is super solid for that price range. On Friday I will be receiving the Scihiit Kara to test run. It will be used in place of a Wyred 4 Sound Pre with the second level upgrade. Will be doing my own thunder dome. Whichever unit performs, the other goes. One thing to keep in mind regarding the Schiit preamps is the input impedance is about 10k ohms. Be cautious of impedance mismatches. |
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Can also try Class A, my preference. Schiit Audio: Audio Products Designed and Built in Texas and California
This is better to my ears than the Schitt Freya+ (owned it before). The Mjolnir is not as good as my Benchmark LA4 and Holo Serene, but it is a really good 2-channel preamp. I listen to the Mjolnir preamp and a Schitt Aegir amp each night with headphones, but in a 2-channel manner. |
If you can wield a soldering iron and follow clear concise directions, try this: You Can Build the PR-102 Stereo Preamplifier Kit - Akitika https://www.akitika.com/PR102.html If not, the AVA or Schiit units are excellent. |
These are well-reviewed and fit nicely within your budget - some include tuners: https://emotiva.com/collections/pre-amps Have fun and enjoy! |
@mattmiller "Check out PRIMALUNA Kevin at Upscale Audio in LA would love to talk to you about them." |
Wow, have not seen Transcendental mentioned for years! He had a sweet Jordan module design. You did not say how many inputs, RCA or XLR, if you need MM or MC, tone, remote etc. Anyway, if I go with the Chord DAC, I'll need another preamp. Have my eye on the Schiit Kara and the Topping A90 discrete. The Ladder and Gustard both look good, but no remote. Reviews of the newest Emotiva seem reasonable. Preamps are not very hard and should not cost a fortune, but of course, the ego-driven audiofool market says we need $80.000 preamps encased in billet aluminum which is course does nothing to shield hum. I had a Nakamichi PA-5 years ago and loved it. It has a smooth and sweet sound. The old Apt Holman was well regarded, but left me cold. Back when I had a B&K ST-140, ( modified) I used the original Hafler kit. Clean for it's time but crap switches of course. If all you need is a buffer and volume control, the JDS Atom+ is an amazing little box for the super high price of $109. My Schiit Asgard is OK, but the JDS is cleaner. So, it depends on what features you need and if you want it to be clean or provide some sort of preferred distortion. Of course for a little more the Schiit Frea gives you both options. The B&K already gives you a little smoothness in the mids, so a squeaky clean CH-FI might do you fine. Amazon return policy makes it easy. Of course, Schiit also has a return. I just ordered a Vidar that I expect to more neutral than my own MOSFET amp, so undecided if I want the perfect clean of the Topping or a little more tuned by ear as Schiit does. |
Wow, have not seen Transcendental mentioned for years! He had a sweet Jordan module design. You did not say how many inputs, RCA or XLR, if you need MM or MC, tone, remote etc. Anyway, if I go with the Chord DAC, I'll need another preamp. Have my eye on the Schiit Kara and the Topping A90 discrete. The Ladder and Gustard both look good, but no remote. Reviews of the newest Emotiva seem reasonable. Preamps are not very hard and should not cost a fortune, but of course, the ego-driven audiofool market says we need $80.000 preamps encased in billet aluminum which is course does nothing to shield hum. I had a Nakamichi PA-5 years ago and loved it. It has a smooth and sweet sound. The old Apt Holman was well regarded, but left me cold. Back when I had a B&K ST-140, ( modified) I used the original Hafler kit. Clean for it's time but crap switches of course. If all you need is a buffer and volume control, the JDS Atom+ is an amazing little box for the super high price of $109. My Schiit Asgard is OK, but the JDS is cleaner. Atom amp and Atom DAC are on my desk feeding my Rekkr on my desk and is very nice. So, it depends on what features you need and if you want it to be clean or provide some sort of preferred distortion. The Schiit Frea gives you both options. The B&K already gives you a little smoothness in the mids, so a squeaky clean CH-FI might do you fine. Amazon return policy makes it easy. Schiit also has a return policy. I just ordered a Vidar that I expect to more neutral than my own MOSFET amp, so undecided if I want the perfect clean of the Topping or a little more tuned-by-ear as Schiit does. I have short cables so RCAs are fine for me. 1K a downgrade? Well, it depends if you are looking purely for performance, or want to buy prestige. For pure sonic purity, my JDS Atom+ will blow that Rotel away. 2 inputs, plastic case, no ego value. Three orders of magnitude cleaner than the amp. ( And I do like those amps). It just won't impress your friends sitting on a big rack between the speakers. Your choice. |
im familiar with tube gear, and there are plenty of tube preamps for a grand, especially on USAM, and its a quick look thru what they got. theres some good new stuff, too. here are some suggestions: quicksilver line stage...im not too familiar with it but its pretty damn popular
new: Line 2CRM Line Preamplifier
tomcat audio
VTA sp-13
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"I really thought that for under $1k today you can only downgrade no matter what you trying to upgrade!"
@czarivey at a grand, for quiality hifi preamps, theres a lot of options. if you can solder, u got a lot more. if u add used. u have an immense amount of work ahead of you narrowing down your choices. |
It’s my level of irony to the general quality of items being made today :) Just replaced my near-new 6mo old dishwasher with one found at curbside with trivial rotary switches approximately 20+ years old. The replaced one has just been warranty repaired and put aside for sale so it will be soon OPJ -- other people’s junk -- not mine! I guarantee that in about 6 months the owners of the new units will dream about good old days when they had good working dishwasher I found at their curbside. got my idea -- I’ve just replaced near $1k unit by the free one from curbside -- what an upgrade!! |
I’d give the Parasound New Class 200 Pre a try (not the integrated option). It has tones of flexibility and sounds real good,,, and is within your stated price or less if used (alot of mentioned options are beyond your stated price). PS: and the remote is arguably the best, well thought out, full function remote any manufacturer makes.
https://parasound.com/200_Pre.php https://tmraudio.com/components/preamplifiers/parasound-newclassic-200-pre-stereo-preamplifier-dac/ |
It depends completely on what improvements and sound characteristics you’re looking for. If you share that info you’ll get much more targeted recommendations here. The other thing to consider is you want the input impedance of the amp to be at least 10 times (and preferably much higher) the output impedance of the preamp. This tends to be more a potential issue with tube preamps than solid state BTW. |
Again thanks for all the recommendations. @soix i had the RC-980BX preamp and to my current RC-995, there was a huge difference in sound quality, especially in the bass region. It has a much better, tighter bass with better definition. The mid and highs also improved. I really want an upgrade where the sound in the upper region to be more dynamic and realistic without losing bass detail and definition. As far as impedance mismatch between pre and amp in my system, i am pretty close to ideal. |
@thecarpathian I find this to be an interesting recommendation do you have one of these pre-amps? |
Have you considered going the minimalistic route (aka a passive preamp)? Here’s a review of one that meets your budget: The Truth Review |
@ highend 64 the following quoted info is from a thread I posted on not too far back. I have seen you have not rejected the idea of a DIY Build and after reading your description for your preferred balance of across the frequencies and produced sonic, if I have got the interpretation correct. As a result of having become quite familiar with this design in use, and partnered with both Tube and SS Power Amp's. I strongly suggest the Pass KB1 Pre - Amp will be quite fitting for your needs. Note: The KB1 has a 'version of a Tetrode Tube' which is a Korg Nutube, this part is a modern approach to a Thermionic Tube usage for a pre-amp. Note: The KB1 is not producing a sonic with a hint of Richness it is Transparent and very revealing of the wholeness of the embedded data within a recording. _____________________________________________________________ "There was a want to bring in a New Pre Amp, where money was not too much of a constraint for a purchase option on a New Pre Amp' for the owner of the exchanged model EAR Power Amp. The monies available for the Pre Amp' was working towards £7K, which shares a similarity to your own situation. A host of Pre Amp's were available for Home Demo's of which one was the EAR 868. Out of the Commercial Pre's being demo'd the EAR was the one that impressed the most. Note: The 868 is not a Lush or Rich Toned Pre Amp, it has clarity and detail retrieval with unnoticeable smearing affecting the micro details. Here is a curve ball, there was also at the Pre Amp Demo's, a PASS KB1 Pre Amp present, and it delivered in a manner that was not easy to overlook. It was also commanding a cost that was very very attractive, and suggested methods to upgrade were also made known and the cost that would be needed to include these. The EAR owner has chosen the Pass KB1 as their Pre Amp and a few other Valve Power Amp owners within the Group are also using the Pass KB1. At present I am having a Balanced Design of the Pre Amp' produced to couple to my monoblock Power Amp's. A Pass KB1 can be acquired for a very respectable outlay. If it does not deliver to your preference, it will sell on and a valuable experience will have been encountered." ________________________________________________________________ As an Update, there are KB1's now in use with a few changes to the basic build, where Volume Controls and a few Cap's have been exchanged. These versions with well known, but carefully thought out tweaks to the Circuit are standout over the earlier guises experienced. The Tweaks come in at no more that £150 if a certain value of VC is selected as the exchange part. |
Your very best value is a VTA SP-13. It has the same circuit as the SP-14, but is about half the price of the SP-14. The SP-14 is the same thing as a Don Sachs preamp (list price at $2500), but in a plain utilitarian enclosure. The SP-13 is $595 in kit form and $760 assembled and tested. Get the kit. You'll get enormous satisfaction, learn a great deal and be much more involved in your system in doing so. Best value in audio. |
I am partial to tubes in the preamp by a large margin. A used Audible Illusions or Melos would be very good if you can find one. I have also bought 12 clone board sets from Aliexpress as well as helped modify several complete tube preamps from AliExpress for local audiophiles in the Las Vegas Audiophile society of which I am the admin.
I would not hesitate to buy from either seller as well. The VTA SP-13 mentioned above is locally made here in Las Vegas as well but is not as good of a value and is a but "Tubey" to me but some like to add that flavor. If you get into DIY then the playing field opens up a lot. |
There is a lot of suggestions that the best value is to be had when a Kit Design is adopted. The idea of this should not be off putting, I have nearly all my audio devices produced by Electronics Engineers. If a Engineers Service is to be used, the cost per hour in the UK, is usually between £30-40. A Pre Amp Build will come in at approx' 3-4 Hours + Testing Time. When this method is adopted the end user can decide on any Boutique Components wanted to be used and the design for the Casing they want. My most recent build, that is 75% complete, is to have a Panzerholz Casing produced, which is intended to be the better of material options to attain the best from the sonic. This is done commercially by a limited amount of Companies and comes on Products that command a substantial asking price. If a commercial route is taken and a Brand is selected, the cost of the aesthetics used for Casing, can alone surpass the costings for the products components, and the casing cost will most certainly surpass the overall costs for a Third Party Service Built Kit Design. |
I wouldn’t say ’it’s easy’ to get a great preamp under a grand, however, I’ve had that challenge before and it can be a lot of fun. There’s a lot of very very good stuff, especially vintage stuff, that you can really enjoy chasing down. Make sure to get good, competitive pricing on whatever you choose so that if it doesn’t work out you can at least get your money back- or most of it, moving it along so the next guy who needs $1,000 preamp. And if I could add, when you're dealing with that kind of budget, I myself would keep it solid state because it'll be a lot easier to get something that works right out of the box now and going forward without having to dik around with tubes, which are lovely, but it's all a crapshoot without really good tubes. |
Ps, I wasn't going to suggest one particular preamp because there are a lot of good ones in the world of vintage gear. That said, for a little more than the grand, I recommend a Krell KRC 3 which can probably be had for $1,200 at this point in time. For 1,200, you'll be living with a fine preamp that sounds better than some $5,000/$6,000 preamps I've had- and it has a remote. |
Thank you all for all the recommendations. I am intrigued that their are quite a few within my budget that have tube preamplifier. Honestly I really like the tube sound but for the type of music I listen to might not work well and that is mostly rock to latin. I also listen to some vocals but where I want to get is a balance and tone of the overall sound. I really like the to have a tight, articulate, well define bass which is one of my priority I think the Rotel has this region right. What lack with the Rotel is the anything in the upper midrange and high end as far as dynamics. |