Budget preamp recommendation...besides Schiit.

I second Quicksilver or Conrad Johnson .   CJs are tough to find at a reasonable price though.     

The preamp is the most important component in your system, choose carefully 

Van Alstine!

https://avahifi.com/collections/preamplifiers

If you are interested in a kit, the Akitika PR102 is both transparent and well featured with modular options to include headphone and phono, with or without motorized remote control. Price is very reasonable for the performance.  This is really the only true “budget” alternative to Schiit.  Well under a grand. 

It would help you narrow the choices if you first clarify features:

a. definite;

b. desired, not absolute

It's hard to keep the list short, but, for low cost ......

My suspicion is that used could match a new budget price and be 'better' and include more ......

Used, with remote volume control is a short list, and many sellers forget to mention the remote, so if interested, do a quick check elsewhere for manual/feature info.

Oh yeah, budget: stretch it,

consider extra cost divided by many years, not much really, just gotta get the dough now: so sell something, give up doing stuff, go out to eat less, buy less content for a while, tell the wife NO MORE SHOES (just for a year)