Schitt Freya or older pre instead

If you could wait and double your budget,
You should look at the Linear tube audio MZ2S,beats or rivals preamps much more expensive.

I tried a Freya with very good nos tubes but found it noisy and just didn't sound that good,sent it back at the end of the trial period.

The MZ2S greatly responds to different tubes and you can voice it for the sound you like,the only thing I don't like is only remote volume and no selection but I can live with that especially with the good sound I'm getting.

Kenny.

Running a Freya into a Taranis amp w/balanced interconnects.  JFET buffer mode exclusively.  Took the tubes out.    It sounds great to me.  NOT noisy at all - though there is some low level "warbling" that can be heard when "muted", oddly enough.   With volume up and nothing playing, very quiet...no noise, warbling or otherwise.  Solid state sound for me was more refined and detailed than with the single-ended tube pre I was using previously.  It supports long listening sessions.  No fatigue.  Seemed to respond with heightened clarity to vibration/isolation measures.  I was NOT that impressed with sound running the as supplied Russian NOS 6sn7 tubes.  Might need to revisit those now that the unit is well run in but I'm entirely happy with the JFET mode.

Expectations and experience levels differ so I'm not trying to pick an argument with Kenny.  5% restocking fee is all you have to risk if you order from Schiit and decide to return it.   DO put signal through it continuously for a couple of days before any critical listening.