Best Remote $1,250 used preamp?

If you like the tube pre sound I would suggest sticking with it. BAT VK3i is in your ball park and was designed to work with either ss or tube gear. I think you will find it to be sweeter than the Sonic Frontiers. I think the pre you are running now is a little sweeter than the BAT.

The Rogue 66 is quite a different animal ( IMHO ) than the BAT. Not as sweet but does sound quite good from top to bottom. I do find it to be just a bit noisey if you put it in with equipment costing twice as much. But for your application it would be perfect. If you get reall lucky you may find a Rogue 99 pre for $1250.

You might also try to find a CJ tube pre. I think I saw a pv14al ( or something like that ) on auction here. But there are other CJ tube pre's you might look into as well. VTL has improved ( I think ) there 2.5 pre as well, but I have never heard it with a ss amp.

Your cables are also warm sounding, so I'm guessing you like the warm sound. Have you ever thought of purchasing a tube amp to go with your pre? I think you will be surpiresd how much better it will sound with your tube pre.

The Aloia preamp bettered a $6000 pre in my system. Still one of the steals or should I say reasonably priced products in all highend

Try finding a used Kora Eclipse. It sounds extremely dimensional. Has RCA as well as Balanced outs. Phono stage, outboard power supply. We are talking a different league. We know, we have had the steals and deals:) IOHO

I have a BAT VK3i and love it, but the remote is volume only. Has a unity gain setting for HT pass-thru, and multiple volume pre-sets (not sure what that's worth if you cant switch sources remotely), and a mute, but no source switching. IMO, the only defect in an otherwise great product that would be right in your price range (and the remote can be retro-fitted to an non-remote unit).

Hi Paul:

I think you're getting some excellent recommendations and had a GREAT list to start off with as well. I wholehartedly agree with David on the Adcom and will leave it at that. I wanted to have you think further about the full function remote. You'll probably find you get up to do other things when you change sources and that volume only isn't as inconvenient as you think. Remote source selection costs money and degrades performance, so if you're looking at 2 pre's at the same price point, the volume only remote unit will likely sound better. Please feel free to contact me if you'd like to discuss this further.

Sincerely,
Mario