Need a good used tube pre $1500 or less

A used Blue Circle BC3 Despina would sell for around $1500.

Try a Cary SLP-50B. With $1500 to spend, you can buy the preamp, upgrade the tubes, and upgrade the power cable. They are excellent little preamps and you can generally find one used for about half of the $1500 you have allowed yourself. You might even have enough left over for a couple of other little goodies.

A Audible Illusions Modulus 3a sounds great and has a phono stage if you need one. If you don't need phono, mebbe a conrad johnson Prenier 14 would do it for you.

C/J pv14 is excellant and has remote.

i had the Audible Illusions Modulus 3a. My first venture into higher end pre-amps. i liked it alot. i have since moved up to a Conrad Johnson PV12 (i wanted the phono stage) and thought it was a big step up from the Modulus 3a. i'm now ready to move up to a better Conrad Johnson pre-amp. For my ears they are sweet and musical (whatever that means) and my experience with their service department also helped sell me on the company. when i first got my PV12 (through audiogon) there was a problem. The guy at CJ spent a lot of time with me on the phone trying to solve the problem without my having to send the unit into them even though i had bought a used piece and not through a CJ dealer. Don't think you can go wrong with the CJ stuff. If you don't need the phono, as others have said, i'd probably go for the better Premier 14.