Looking for an amazing preamp under $700 used

Try a used Musical Fidelity A3cr, available near your price range. This preamp has beaten several other well-respected (and much more expensive) preamps in my system. Excellent detail, dynamics, and a very tight bass response. It has remote control as well.

Michael

Forgetting the fact I have one for sale, if you don't need to be on the common brand bandwagon, check out the Museatex Meitner Pa6i preamp. Although I believe Museatex Meitner is an unknown quantity to many, the fact their prices never go much below a certain price point probably means something to those who know the gear.

foreverhifi2000, I think it a disservice to those asking advise that you continually refer to a "lack of dynamics" or "You'll give up ultimate dynamics" when discussing passives - as if it were a given. You may have had that experience but many others of us have had the opposite experience. Yes, components must be matched carefully but the rewards in doing so are excellent. It is fair to discuss passives in that light. To present a lack of anything regarding a passive as a given, is just wrong because it just ain't true.

Larry does not mention his amp but, depending on it, I'd wager that one of the smaller Bents would provide as good or better performance than several of the other preamps listed here.

Audible Illusions L-1 preamp. You want beat it for the price. They ended up at about $2195 new before the L-2 came out and now sell for around $700 used. It is an all around great performer. Very transparent and neutral for a tube preamp. You can change the sound of this unit with different tubes. It seems to be more effected than most by tube brands. Lot of folks overlook this pre sadly.
It is as transparent as the TLC but delivers a more dynamic sound.

The Audible Illusions L-1 would probably be a good choice. The Meitner also has a strong following. However, I believe those two must be used single ended (rca connectors) and neither have processor loops. If you want the choice of balanced or single ended operation and a processor loop, the Adcom GFP 750 is a good suggestion (I just sold one with black gate capacitor upgrades), but an even better unit would be a Muse Model 3 (non-signature version) which would probably go for about $700-800 used, if you could find one. Good luck.