I am a bit amazed when someone identifies the absolute "best" of anything. I cannot make such a definitive determination amongst the really limited universe of the stuff I own, much less, all the other stuff out there. I have two tube linestages that could be among the best that I own, but, both have their strengths and weaknesses, so I cannot say which is the best. One is an Emotive Audio Epifania, the other is a custom built preamp that is fully transformer coupled (input transformers, output transformers, no capacitors in the signal path, feeding an amp that also has input transformers and no capacitors in the signal path).