Solid State preamp Brands

jim2,

Wow! that is quite the collection of Ayre gear.  I like their linestage, amplifiers and integrated amps, never heard a bad one, but, I have not heard their DACs.  I don't mind the odd quirks, like the mechanical movement of their rotary stepped attenuators by remote control making clunking sounds; they apparently prefer this sort of switching to relay switching.

Why the SPL Elector gets such little love! Beyond me. It flies so under the radar, but is IMMENSELY GOOD. Can really scale with very high end pairing components. And not nearly as pricey as many mentioned here.

👍🏼💯

Boulder 

I have no experience with the Classe Delta, but I like Classe in general a lot - I still run Classe DR3 VHC power amps (x3) and one DR7 preamp which was an over the top model made in small numbers in the 80s with a separate power supply that looks like a power amp and it sound very good.  I'll leave it to others with experience with the same model you are contemplating to offer opinions on that model.

FWIW, I tried a Coda CP and it was incredibly noisy in my system. Contacted Coda and they felt it was operating normally.

I much preferred the Bel Canto Pre5 and Benchmark LA4.