best preamps

richopp,
I have a Jeff Rowland Corus preamp. I keep reading their preamps sound bad. I’ve compared it to a couple preamps and prefer the Corus. I’m always open to improving my sound, but I need a preamp with HT bypass, specifications that will work with my Jeff Rowland 625 S2 amp, and be at or below the price of the Corus($16K).

Esoteric CO2x

@paul79 
The Funk LAP-2
http://www.funk-tonstudiotechnik.de

Hello
The Audio-gd Master 1 costs a little more than 1k and its consider to compete with preamps costing 3 to 5 times more. 
Audio-gd its a chinese brand that has an incredible price to quality ratio in its products.

Many don’t realise the only role of a preamp is to make the signal from the source outputs suited for the amplifier inputs. Nothing more. If someone doesn’t need additional inputs, just save money ( cables, ...) by getting a dac with a quality preamp volume section included. Then get the amplifier type to color ( or not) the sound to your taste, and to fit your speakers requirements.

Sure, anyone can choose to add a preamp to his loom, if coloring the sound before the amp makes for a result that pleases you...just go for it. But still, you are adding signal cables, ... imho the less cables the better.