Preamp upgrade opinion...

The Pass Labs amps seem to work quite well with tubes. I think you will appreciate the additional detail and smoothness they bring to the party. Some preamps will have trouble making bass into the Pass Labs and others won't.

We have a little preamp called the UV-1 that might suit- even comes with a phono section.

Whatever preamp you get, get one as nice as you can- the Pass Labs will love you for it as they are quite revealing.

Telos. No the ModWright does not at all lack bass. It's a great preamp that is not at all thin, overly tubey or a wimp. 

I spoke to Pass when I was looking for a new preamp and they strongly cautioned me using a singled ended preamp on the X250; I know on my former preamp it was too noisy. The X250 has 30dB of gain so it's a little noisy to begin with. They .5 and .8 series have had their gain dropped probably for that reason. They mentioned to me they ran it that high for home theater users to begin with.

I never had the XP10 at home but came close to trying it. Read a lot of reviews from actually users using it, also X250 and ModWright users and came across several here using the X250 with MW LS36.5 so I went that route and since my former preamp was a ModWright I felt safe and it is a great combination.

It is a fine preamp but like any tube pre, tubes make a difference and I am running none of the stock tubes which seriously made a great difference for the better.

Whatever you try or end up with I would stick with a balanced unit.

Thanks for your response. Would the BAT VK-50SE match well with my X250?

Krell EV222, Krell Phantom III, Krell Illusion 2...all three could fit your price and sound AWESOME.  :-) 

Thanks for your response. Would the BAT VK-50SE match well with my X250?

 RIt should. Have you expanded your budget?