Are there any $1500 tube preamps that that can compare with Tubes4hifi's SP14?

Maybe the title of this thread is a little too narrow question. I'm really asking if folks can recommend tube preamp's that have great imaging, have that musical sweet sound, and improve on the highs with a $1500 budget 

Hello hausera,
Look into the Linear Tube Audio Micro  ZOTL line stage (Mz2-s) . Owners on this site and reviewers are quite enthusiastic about its sound quality. Audiogon member teajay (Terry London) reviewed it for hometheaterreview.com and writes that it’s superb.
Charles

I have Don Sachs' SP-14 (currently back for the latest upgrades).  It is absolutely killer!  Musicians in the room, goose bumps, the whole nine yards.  It hits way out of its price point.  I've had quite a few expensive and highly rated preamps over the years, and the SP-14 is up there with the best of them (for a lot less money).

As Charles says, the Linear Tube Audio Micro ZOTL is supposed to be amazing as well, however I have not heard it.

As someone who builds tube gear and owns many pieces from various manufacturers, a couple pieces of advice when buying tube gear.
1 Understand the tube being used.  Look at the tube data sheets.  Look for high transconductance, greater than 6500 ohms 
2 Build quality is paramount.  If AC heaters are not done right your signal to noise ratios will be poor
3 Older products may needs rebuilt.  Many of the large capacitors go bad after a 20 years
4 Stick with a 9 pin tube as they provide internal shielding.  Unless it has a good DC heater supply
5. Do a little research on what a SRPP, Mu Folllwer and White Cathode folllower is and what their pluses and minuses are
6 Finally the quality of parts is paramount.  Poor undersized caps can lead to poor frequency response.  Carbon resistors color sound

As to passive preamps a good transformer volume control costs but they are very transparent and have plenty of drive as the excess voltage is converted to current.  With a tube preamp your minimum gain will be 20 which is 20 more times than your amp needs.  Which means the rest of it will be burned across a carbon pot.  Unless a good stepped attenuator has been used

BTW my main two amps are a parallel SET 300b and a 845.  I also have a MC225, a VT100, Sophia Baby Amp, and a Unison Reaerch 845.  Just to say I am not against tubes.

Hi, 
I disagree with the statement that tube preamps have a minimum gain of 20.  My Line Stage has 10 dB of gain and some active preamps have only 6 to 8 db of gain. 

9 pin tubes are the most common choice for preamps however 8 pin (octal) are excellent candidates as well. For example the 6SN7/12SN7.  My preamp uses a 4 pin tube  (DHT) 101D  and it's superb IMO. It always boils down to implementation when all is said and done. 
Charles