Cary Preamps

I have to totally disagree with the above post. I have the SLP98 preamp with phono. It is one of the absolute best preamps on the market. With the stock kimbers, it is an excellent and musical preamp. With Teflon caps, which I put in, it is in the top tier of great preamps. Much experience with gear, but now you have two opinions, so I suggest you listen for yourself. If you want another opinion, do a search and see how long a fairly priced used SLP98 preamp remains on audiogon before being sold.
I think your price range excludes the 98 preamp. AES, which is also Cary, has simple versions, sometimes in kit forms of their preamps. They are reasonably priced new and used, you may want to check those out. They also do not last long on the used market. In fact, most good preamps that are reasonably priced do not remain on the market long.
Other suggestions that would work in your range (used price) and are respectable, Rogue Magnum, Audible Illusions L1, ARC SP6B, ARC SP8, ARC SP3A1, CJ PV series preamps. Even older CJ premier preamps sometimes show up less than $1000. I think a great vintage preamp, if you want to do some work restoring rectifiers and caps (not resistors) is an old Eico HF85. This has very respectable sound and I regret selling mine. Ugly as heck but I go after sound. . New you can consider the eastern minimax.
I think any of these preamps will do a good job and will not dissapoint.. You have to match it up with the rest of your system. I think linestage is easier to match than phono. If you buy on Audiogon without listening, then no matter what opinons you get, when you finally get the piece, if your taste differs, then you still may not like it. I suggest going to an audio dealer in your area. Many have used gear for sale at reasonable prices. Here in the Chicago area, as an example, Audio Consultants, Quintessence Audio and Holm Audio often have good supplies of trade in gear. At some, if you leave a credit card, they will allow you to take home and audition. Audio consultants has a 90 day, no questions asked return policy on their used gear. And of course, you can listen in store.
Good luck with your search.

I have never owned a tube pre-amp (and there have been MANY), that did not "ring like a microphonoic piece of junk" with a microphonic tube installed.

Your on the right track, and perhaps Bob had his a little too close to the speakers, whom can say. Maybe he had a bad one.

The Cary SLP98 is excellent, so is the VTL 5.5 one here today for I think 2200 with lots of toobs.

Also if you can find a BAT toob unit, I like those. An older VAC is nice, aw heck, so many toobs, so little time.

jeff

Many of the great tube component manufacturers produce entry level preamps that share some of the same components and design ideas that their higher priced preamps have. Entry level preamps from high end manufacturers may be the best bang for your buck value in High End Audio. Some suggestions in your price range would be a BAT VK3i(in my opinion you cannot go wrong with a BAT tube preamp), various Audio Research preamps (another no-brainer, and various Conrad-Johnson preamps (another no-brainer).

That being said, Audible Illusions 3A preamps which have always been considered amazing values are, for some reason, extremely inexpensive on the used audio market. If you can pick one up for under $1000 and then do some tube rolling to suit your musical taste, mine runs toward warm sounding tubes, then your cousin will only have good things to say about you during family reunions.

Regards,
Drew

I second the SLP-98. I just bought one and have had no problems with it. I own a few Cary components and find them to be high quality. The suggestion for AES is a good one. Also, these are rare, but the N.E.W. P-3 is a consideration. I traded mine in to a dealer when I bought the SLP-98, so I know where one exists if you're interested. It would probably cost less than $500. Cary built the P-3 for N.E.W. (a company now defunct) which resembles an AES DJH and Cary SLP-50. According to a conversation I had with Dennis Had, he got a lot of mileage out of that preamp design. For $150 Cary will upgrade the unit to accept 6CG7 tubes. According to Dennis this will make the preamp scream. I owned the preamp for several years and it was very reliable and sounded great. Original price on it was $1650 (circa 1997) so it was no slouch.

I'd consider some of the other Cary preamps as well. The SLP-88 seems to be in your price range and is the predecessor to the SLP-94 and SLP-98. A couple on here now.

Good luck with the search.