Preamp suggestions, yes again

I agree, I have expensive McIntosh equipment and they all come with cheap plastic remotes.  I would be more than willing to pay $300.00 for the same remote in an aluminum chassis that doesn’t show the oils from your hands and fingers. 

The best remote ever came with an old CD player. The front and back are high quality solid hardwood, laser-etched, with just a few large buttons that are easy to work even in the dark. The sides or frame is one piece cast metal, probably aluminum, although with its unique textured finish its hard to tell. The back is held with magnets, so not a screw or fastener to be seen. Perfect heft. Shaped to fit the hand. Just an absolutely beautiful remote. 

The controls match the simplicity of the Raven amp remotes. Its so nice I keep it around just on the chance of maybe one day swapping parts or something to give me a reason to use it again. 

Other than that, remotes pretty much suck. 

This remote by the way, you're talking about paying $300 just to have a good remote. The whole CD player with remote was only about $500. This was nearly 20 years ago. There's just no reason we should still be looking at crap remotes 20 years later. 

Appreciate all the good preamp discussion, suggestions and recommendations. I added the Quicksliver to my list of potentials. I have some more brain debating to do but Im leaning towards the Van Alstine right now. Always open to any additional thoughts.

Quicksilver all day long.

Those Klipsch speakers are very high efficiency at 96 db.  I would avoid the Odyssey Candela as there have been several problems with people getting ground loop hum/buzz on this setup.  With a high efficiency speaker, the amount of background buzz is even higher and will cause listening fatigue and noise in the music.

Look for something that has a very clean/quiet background.