Best Preamp under 10K

If you need an affordable phono stage, the Mike Yee Musical Surroundings "Phonomena" is killer! I don't know what the best linestage under 10k would be, but I would audition the CAT Ultimate, Sonic Frontiers Line 3, ARC Reference 1 or 2, Levinson 380s, Krell KCT, and even a used Conrad Johnson ART...PERHAPS ALL AT ONCE. That would be the only way to know for sure which one you like best. Probably not a realistic task, I guess. IF YOU'RE ONLY GOING TO LISTEN TO CD, THEN FORGET A LINESTAGE unless you get upsampling DACS like the dCS combo. I THINK THE WADIA "POWER DAC 790" would be interesting to hear, since it accepts a 192 kHz digital signal. That's more than $10k, though... AND IF YOU ONLY LISTEN TO VINYL, I doubt the Aesthetix "IO" can be beaten, perhaps driving the power amp directly. The Jeff Rowland "Cadence" phono is THE quietest phono stage...

Had solid state preamps, but a tubed linestage with ss amp combines the speed, tightness and bottom-end punch of ss with the mid-range liquidity and smoothness (read "lack of grain") and treble sweetness of tubes. Currently running a c-j 16LS with new MF-2500 amp in an Avalon Arcus/Harmonic Tech system. Musical, gentlemen, musical.

I have to agree with Tri....it is the Hovland HP100. I have compared it to the BAT, MLevinson, Pass Labs, CAT etc. They are the most neutral, and musical pre-amp I have heard.

Balanced Audio 50se

Best value: Blue Circle BC 3, competes with CAT Best preamps: BC 3.1 ($4650) and BC 3000 ($6250)