Pre-Amp Help

I have a Cary SLP98P hooked to a Cary V12R. NO problems.

I have a Cary SLP98P F1 from Kevin at Upscale Audio and it is STELLAR. Running into (same as yours)Cary 500mb to my Maggies. I don't think you need that much juice for the beautiful and talented Paradigms, tube amps might be just incredible with that set up. nothing wrong with the SLP 05, but I like the SLP98-P (mellower) better, and much better than my earlier McIntosh c2200 (which was great, it's just all so subjective and depends on what you have downstream).

For my "can glare with the wrong upstream gear" Maggies Cary is a perfect match.

Good luck

Macdadtexas, take a look at my review here on the GON on the Audio Valve Eklipse preamp for the details regarding this terrific linestage. It's in your budget range and I have heard the Ayre-K1XE and believe it is quite out performed by the Eklipse across all sonic parameters.