Preamp suggestions for Classe cap 150 under 1000

Quite frankly, your desire to have a preamp that sounds less "muddy" than the CAP150, uses tubes, and costs less than $1000 might be one of those situations where you can "pick 2 of those 3 things".

Aside from the Quicksilver mentioned above, there are very few tube preamps that might not sound "muddy" to you relative to the Classe. A Marsh P2000t might work for you at around $600 used. (It was a steal even for its list price, IMHO.)

You might actually do better with solid state in that price range, such as a Classe DR5 or Musical Fidelity A3cr.

Better yet, though, you might be best off selling the integrated and getting a different integrated amp. Maybe a used Electrocompaniet or Plinius, for example.

That's probably what I would do with my money, as I feel it would be the best bang for the buck upgrade towards your stated goal.

Michael

Not a suggestion, but I used to have a system with a Classe-CAP 151 and an Exemplar-Denon 2900. I really loved both of those pieces.

My problem were the tubes in cd player forgot they were old and worn out,its been sitting up so long.New tubes came in yesterday(amprex)not veiled or muddy like before.Should have tried another source before assuming it was the amp.I still would like to add a Preamp.Anyone ever hear Transcendent Sound Grounded Grid preamp,I could build one for $500.I would buy used Quicksilver but $800 seems high for a used $1000 retail preamp.

My (10 y/o) exemplar totally killed an Oppo 105 a few years back, really a great player. Glad to hear you resurrected it.

Amp came back to life after running 24/7 for 3 1/2 days no need for pre amp.Integrated was too tranparent and hi fi sounding after putting in tubes in cd player.Been so long since I ran a solid state amp. my mccormack dna rev a took 3 to 5 days to sound right and ran it 24/7 365,forgot all about that.