High end stereo preamps? Worth it?

Is anyone aware of these types of components, and have you heard them, and are any available at a more reasonable price level?

Funny, if you are asking about an integrated amp, with a direct plug-in RIAA option, it's my current design project.   (also a direct plug in discrete headphone amp for "personal audio".  Moving slowly due to other "paying the bills" projects. On the other hand it is (targeted to be...) fully remote, in part because the approach i am taking ought to simplify the signal path down to a pair of resistors. And i want remote capability and presume others do too.

Target is ~$2500 + RIAA. Not sure if you call that reasonable. And, of course, i don't count pricing o performance chickens until they hatch. Could be a colossal dud - but the basic unit, sans remote capabilities, is floating around getting independent appraisals. SO far, so good compared to ~ $10k and up combinations.
yep simpler is (generally) better.
One caveat, as a noted above, all that assumes that the simplified system remains properly impedance matched between stages and operates within its optical range. This is not always true.
G

Ah the "great preamp vs no preamp" question.
So how can anything be better than zero distortion? Its tough, but possible in one of three ways.
1. It adds a euphonic distortion that you like.. nothing wrong with this, its what a Piano’s sounding board does.

But why turn it into something else again with more colorations, it’s not what the maker of that piano specifically wanted you to hear. "Otherwise he may of added a tube sound board🤦‍♂️" and then called it a synthesizer instead of a piano.😏

Cheers George

@itsjustme - no - I was talking about going straight from a phono stage to a power amp. Basically a one input preamp with that input being phono. Output to a power amp (not integrated). Same amount of cables as if the power amp was integrated, but eliminating the integrated's preamp switching circuitry. Sutherland's philosophy seems to be take out whatever you can in search of a straight line connection.

@lowtubes - who wouldn't value purity and tonality?

Not really sure what the “distortion” argument is. If you look at the very best sounding amplifiers, e.g., the Lamm ML 2.2s, the THD numbers don’t approach many of the solid state designs...  But, there aren’t many folks (in a blindfolded test) who’d take a 0.001THD amp over, say, a Lamm SET With much higher THD numbers.

But, there aren’t many folks (in a blindfolded test) who’d take a 0.001THD amp over, say, a Lamm SET With much higher THD numbers.

Where if you can post the link, was this blind test and with how many conducted and printed up?

Cheers George