It is a good idea to purchase a vintage tube pre-amp.

Also, thanks for all of you for your kind response and help or suggestions. Best wishes for you to have pleasant listening too.

The classic SP-15 is a classic ARC pre & cherry ripe for high end mods imho. Bare is mind, it is quite old, so unless you find one already refurbed unit, I would look for a stock example in good nic & save up for a refurb incl: higher end caps, some nice WBT rca jacks, Furutech IEC & some nice matched NOS tubes. The only caveat is you’ll need single ended cables. Also, the included phono stage is ok, but i’d look for something like a 2nd hand ARC PH3 SE if you want a decent matching phono stage.

For $3000, a PH-3se phono stage and an LS-16 line stage might be better than an SP-15, don't ya think?

@bdp24, Sure. But the SP15 would be fun to go all out modding ;) The look and vintage of the two components would match up nicely too.

True. I love the look of matching faceplates, especially ARC's and McIntosh.