Tube Preamp - What to buy?

+1 @donsachs You make a great preamp which is a stone cold bargain when compared to anything that might be considered competition.

Oz

Hey there 

I would strongly consider 

Primaluna Dialogue tube pre amp.
for the price its very hard to beat even at 2 times the cost !

Good luck 

I concur with the recommendations on EAR.  Just picked up an 868PL.  Wanted to see if the hype was real.  As a previous poster stated I put some Siemens/Holland NOS tubes in (it actually had 6DJ8 types there from factory).  Biggest pleasant surprise of my life.  For me the hype is confirmed real.  Dan Meinwald has been very patient with my questions so I can also state great customer support.  I also researched Troels Graveson pages on these EAR preamps.  Give this preamp my highest recommendation. You will get lots of opinions, overwhelming.   Suggest give this a listen, you may discover a real gem.  

This is peripherally related to the OP, but in follow up to my post above, I just switched out the Raven Blackhawk Mk3.1 and replaced it with one of the years biggest hifi bargains IMO the Boyuurange A50 Mk3 300B SET integrated amp. Now I got done playing the Raven Blackhawk today through a Steely Dan list and played it, for me, relatively loud. The Raven is super articulate and has plenty of power. I love that amp. Now granted it is nighttime and I am playing the Boyuurange A50 at lower SPLs, but even at low levels this baby can image! I think, yes, possibly better than the Raven. Yes I said it. Now I will confirm tomorrow when I play the A50 at similarly loud levels with the Steely Dan playlist and some others. But tonight I felt the Donald Fagan was on his Fender Rhodes right in front of me in the room. Bill Evan’s trio? Same thing. The holographic soundstage and imaging this A50 produces is amazing and addictive. Is it the A50 or is this typical of all 300B SET amps? But at $883.20 with the current 5% off coupon on Amazon, no other 300B can beat this. Take another 5% off if you have a Prime credit card and it just keeps getting better. Just amazing, and amazing for the dollar. I think this is a really instructive pair of amps. The SET 300B A50 and the push pull Raven Blackhawk Mk3. More to come when I crank the A50 tomorrow. But meanwhile, if you have a little less than $900 plus sales tax burning a hole in your pocket, I can’t think of a better way to use this cash than on this Boyuurange A50 Mk3 300B SET Integrated from Amazon. Which leads me to another recent bargain of 2021, the Sony SSCS5 bookshelf speakers. These are currently $148 on Amazon. But recently I picked up a pair for only $73! If these go back to $73 and you pair them to the A50, that is a little killer system for no money. Just fill in with a digital front end and some cables and that is a nice system with some main pieces that are bargains for the SQ and the money.

Many good candidates posted on this thread for your consideration. Let me comment that this is not the first time this question has been posted on this forum.

I suggest you take a look at the very top of the ’amps-preamps’ forum and look for the tab titled "popular all time". There you’ll find the "Preamp deal of the century" 26-million plus view thread, spanning two decades, discussing the Supratek preamps from Australia. They are superb. All handmade. Point to point wiring. Lifetime guarantee. I think he has a model in your price range, though it does not have an internal phono stage and the remote is volume-control only.