Decent preamp

The Schiit Freya + is a tube pre and is way more than decent.  It’s a great value at $899, and they offer an in-home trial period.  BTW, if you say you’re on a budget it’d be nice to know what that number is.  Just sayin’.

Another Freya+ recommendation here. It's $899.

+ 1

Freya for the money, used 550.00 and up, 900.00 new. The two I saw had an active or passive options. No tone control, but a remote.

In passive, I used the remote volume control for an older preamp also, NO coloration, no noise, worked very well.
A/B the two, flip of a switch. Neighbors idea, works good too.

One of the two I saw actually bested a stock C2500. It (the Freya) had Tung Sol valves. Great options too. 6SN7 has lots of great valves to choose from.

I’m lookin for a good used one..too. ;-)

Regards

I agree with millercarbon that a good integrated is better value than separates for music but in my case I needed an AVR for movies, streaming,TV, bluray, etc. So I got a yammy aventage AVR and a schiit vidar amp driving maggie LRS speakers. This amp was only $700.
200wpc into 4 ohms which is good for maggies which tend to be very power-hungry. I use the AVR as a preamp. IMO (and I know I’m in the minority here) preamps do not really contribute much to "sound quality". I love this AVR. It does everything except make coffee.I’ve had it for a year and there’s still stuff on it I haven’t tried. A lot of bang for the buck. But it’s power/current output was a little low for the maggies.I did drive them with it for a while but at higher volume levels the AVR would get hot and shut down.