Vacuum Tube Preamp for Solid State Power Amp Pairing

My advice would be first and foremost you have a high quality amplifier. Stay in the same league or higher. Don't buy a piece of shiit. Don't be afraid of an older high end unit the Hovland was considered one of the best preamplifier s made at the times as well as the bad boy audio research and CJ models. A little known American made company that you will find cheap would be a canary audio. Look for either the best one that was in four boxes completely seperate channels and separate power supplies or the two box one with seperate power supplies and internationally separate like the four box model. Also don't be afraid of a sonic frontier preamplifier number three. That would have balanced in and out. Go for a high quality preamplifier before you worry about a cheap one with a remote. 

My recommendation would be for the 6SN7 based preamp the Cary Audio SLP-98L.  Beautiful unit with remote power supply chassis and an uncanny realistic tone quality but I fear the gain would be too much for the Chord amp and the Rothwell attenuators did not work well for me.  

The Rogue Audio units are fantastic but I recommend to stay mid-range and go with the RP-5.  I had the RP-7 and it was too burnished and polite sounding and did not respond well to any NOS tubes.  The RP-5 sounds smooth and still retains excellent detail.  Nice looking unit too.  

sim_audio_nerd

The CODA S5.5 is a killer of an amp in it's own right, but pair it up with a great tube preamp.....and it's brilliant

The recommendation for the Primaluna Evo 400 preamp above is good.  I used to use one on my primary system and, in fact, it’s sitting on a shelf currently awaiting use in my to-be built system in my vacation home.  I really like their looks and sound in most circumstances.  Gave just the amount of tube sound I wanted.

i did get a weird feedback when listening to certain albums (consistently certain Rolling Stones tracks) at high volume with the Evo 400.  Running balanced into Classe Delta Monoblocks and from a Van den Hul Grail SE phone amp.  Couldn’t ever resolve it.

Switched to a Nagra HD preamp (also tube) and it went away.  The Nagra is markedly better in all ways, so I’ve never switched back on my system.  But they’re generally pretty pricey and not necessary for most systems.

I have Supratek's Chardonnay. Funny as I told Mick to make the best sounding preamp he could, price no object and he settled on the Chardonnay. Cost $3700, usually $2650 st the time. I know the Cabernet is supposedly better or the Grange but I'm thinking he took me at my word as wanting nothing too euphonic, 

And yes, pretty most all his 6SN7 preamps have gain control