Best Preamp under 10K

Lamm LL2 Better than classe Audio research and levinson body dynamics and real harmonic accuracy!! and plenty of bass punch great for digital front ends!

General Electric mono phono $12.95! Circa 1957. Single 6sc7. Beats any phono up to $65,000!

First Sound, lots of quality and extreme performance for the money. I would put MKIII (current entry level-retail $5400) against any pre-amp up to $10K.

Another factor is the synergy of the other components in your system.

A lot of good recommendations in this thread. My short list is VAC Renaissance and Ayre K-1xe. Others that I am intrigued by:

Burmester 035 (or 011)
Hovland HP 200
Conrad Johnson ET-5
VTL TL-6.5
Wyetech Opal

The Hovland, CJ, and Wyetech do not have balanced outputs so I am more reluctant to pursue those...

The First Sound pre-amps are awesome. The MKIII (current entry level model @ retail $5400)will perform with any pre-amp up to $10K easily.