Looking for a preamp with XLR connections

FWIW, the Benchmark preamps get excellent ASR reviews, have no tubes, have XLR inputs/outputs, and cost far less than $10K.  So they seem to match the OP's criteria well. In case you don't trust ASR, IIRC other reviews have been very positive as well.  

The Simaudio Moon 740p is worth considering. Likewise the Passlabs XP22. In  both cases however, the number of balanced inputs is limited. Both are superbly transparent, musical pre's that are feature top quality engineering and build.

Parasound JC2

$3500 new

leaves you a budget for great cables

Good luck Willy-T

I know you said no tubes, but check out PS Audio’s BHK preamp.  It’s a hybrid so it has some small tubes, but they will last ten thousand hours.

Just a thought.

JD

There's a lot of incredible preamps for $10k.  

• XLR connections doesn't mean fully differential balanced circuitry
• There are excellent solid state preamps and furthermore there are exception preamps "plus" that include phono stage, DAC or DAC/Streamer

I have Moon by Simaudio 390 and I think it's excellent.  I previously had a McIntosh C2600 which is a tube preamp and if money wasn't a consideration I'd probably went for a ARC preamp.

Listen to as many options as you can - there's certainly a number of strong options.  Enjoy the journey.