Give me a tube preamp that looks and sound great

McIntosh C2200. Very musical tube preamp.

I had a few different ARC's and moved up to a BAT 30 preamp three years ago. I'm very satisfied with the preamp, even bought a 3i for a second system.

Sonic Euphoria or Placette Passive

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ddpreatran&1115845347

i once had the arc sp-16l and now i have a supratek chardonnay. though i had some other pre's between the two, i don't remember the arc exhibiting as much emotion as the supratek does. the supratek just brings out the life, body, and emotion of the music better in my opinion. there's a used one for sale here right now (not mine) so you might could go that route and save time (6-7 months) and money.

Take a look at the Canary products, especially the CA-801 and up. Great sound, and really well built. I haven't heard any Supratek products, so I can't compare, but on their own merits Canary are a class act. Used units would be within your price range.

I don't know if you're open to other approaches than tubes at this point, but a transformer passive can be a very attractive alternative. I have a Canary 801 as well as an Audion Premier (a 6922 line stage with SS power supply), but with my Canary 339 monoblocks the Bent Audio NOH passive is noticeably better than either of them. However, on some other amps the situation is reversed, so this isn't an absolute recommendation, just something to think about.