Line Stage Preamps that blew you away $2500 Edition

Find a used Sonic Frontiers, SFL-1 for under a grand and play around with tubes - will shock you. Spend a little more and get a Manley, Shrimp. Have 1st hand experience with both of these playing tube amps and SS. Each are equally rewarding. Both a bit colored but in exceptional ways - match amps accordingly and you'll really enjoy the experiences the provide. Just my opinion. 

The Doug Sach's 2, DS2 should be in that price range and using 6SN7 tubes it is one awesome preamp. Doug has managed to master quiet power so that it doesn’t get in the way of the sound, and has found components that has the most minimal impact on the sound. After a lifetime of modifying Harmon Carden Citation and Macintosh equipment he found a design that is superior to those venerable tube component manufacturers. I have had too many preamps. Put Linlie E6SN7 tubes in the output stage and the preamp appears to disappear. He'll also match the outputs impedance to up to 2 amplifiers. 

@gochurchgo 

live anywhere near NC ?  I’d lend you some to try out …   the sys might give you a taste, but it’s not going to paint the best picture..

I used a direct connection from my DAC to my amp, adjusted the volume via JRiver software in 64 bit mode, plenty of LSB to throw away that doesn’t affect the music.. To give me a taste of “purity” before buying my current passive. The problem I had was not being able to control the volume unless everything passed through the JRiver software. So my streaming didn’t have any volume control and no flexibility to connect other components..  That taste of purity and simplicity was enough to send me on a deep dive into a proper passive..  My next project will be to turn my TVC Django into an autoformer configuration by using only the secondary winding and the taps, but it won’t handle my balanced input like my current TVC. Saving that for when I get bored as my system now sounds really good to my tastes..

Well, a thought about passives. Theoretically they should sound better than an active, right?

Well, one of the finest builders in the world, Emmanuel Go, the owner, designer and builder of First Sound, started out building passives. I heard one many years ago and it left an indelible impression on me. It was superb. 

He no longer builds passives. Why? Because his active preamps sound better than passives. I'm *not* saying that passives aren't a good way to go. I'm just saying that active preamps *can* sound superb.

Also, I'm not saying that preamps built using miniature 9-pin tubes *can't* sound good. I'm just in the camp of those who prefer the robust, hearty, fully-fleshed out beauty of the 6SN7 tube. Some of the others on this thread also seem to prefer preamps with this tube in the circuit. Hence some of the posts above... 

I received the Audio GD HE 1 XLR preamp last week. I've had 4 days off from work and spent a couple hours a day listening to this preamp. My only other preamp I've had is the Don Sachs, latest version with the best caps Don uses. Also a great sounding preamp IMO. However, this Audio GD is something different. It is a touch softer sounding but not soft, maybe just a touch more organic. Dead quiet. Seriously. I didn't think it was on when I first turned it on. Just spacious, natural, detailed, dynamic. The Sachs is right there and fantastic, love the second RCA outputs for using a sub, love the form factor, the sound is alive and natural. The biggest difference to me is the Audio GD is dead, dead quiet and a touch more spacious. However, the Audio-GD has some quirks. First, its large and deep. It fits my cabinet but make sure it fits your space. Second, the remote isn't the most accurate. It's finicky on making visual contact with the preamp. The display is old school. For a premium product you'd think they could find a better looking display. The Sachs volume readout is much better and looks more contemporary vs. the 80's Seiko look of the display on the Audio-GD. Overall, the Sachs is better looking. May not matter to some, but for those with a WAF hurdle to navigate the Sachs looks more bespoke and is a potential conversation starter vs. the more austere looking Audio-GD. Also, when I dim the screen of the Audio-GD there's still one blue bar showing. When I cover it with electric tape it affects the remote's sensor. However, I love that the Audio-GD preserves the volume level on each input so I can volume match two inputs and then A/B on the fly. And, when it comes to sound I'd call it liquid gold. You can't really go wrong with either. Technically the Audio-GD HE 1 XLR is over $2500 but the solid state version is $2500, but might be worth the extra for the tubed XLR version.