The best sounding pre amp out there is no pre amp at all, many fine source components can be directly connected to a amplifier, at one time I was only into CD's so I had a CD player that had a volume control on it and balanced outputs! I had 2 pieces of gear and was buying the finest CD's I could get my hands on (XRCD).
Matt M
P.S I prefer a hybrid setup using a Manley Labs Jumbo shrimp and Chinook Phono pre front end with a McIntosh MC352 double balanced solid state amp.