Tubed Preamp recommendations?

Great stuff fellas, Modwright and the DeHavilland are now both on the list and after much reading I took vintage ARC and CJ off the list because I don’t want to have to deal with repairs. Speaking of ARC, there is a fairly modern SP16L that’s available and has good reviews...the Rogue looks cool, I haven’t looked into them yet. As for the Schiit, I’ll pass on the Freya...I have nothing bad to say about my Saga and with the Psvane tube it sounds really nice...the remote and the way it interacts with the volume knob i find a little quirky but otherwise it’s big bang for the buck. Nevertheless, i want a preamp that I can build around rather than have to upgrade.

I'd go with the Prima Luna 3.

My vote is for the Freya +. I have owned a Counterpoint SA 5000 that I purchased new many years ago when they went out of business for $2500–it was a $5000 unit. I loved this preamp until it’s transformer went— taking with it a lot of other parts! I then purchased a used Audio Research on Audiogon. I did not like the weak bottom end and the overly sweet mids. I heard a lot of good things about the Freya + and decided to give it a shot knowing I good return it. The unit came stock with JJ tubes, It sounded good— but not great. Reading about tube rolling for the Freya I purchased a set of nos Ken-Rad 6sn7gt 9 hole top mica black glass tubes, circa 1950. This took the Freya to a whole new level! I now can say that in some ways I prefer the Freya to my beloved Counterpoint! Don’t sweat the small stuff — with a little tube rolling this is an amazing sounding preamp and an incredible bargain!
  If you don’t agree you can return the preamp and use the tubes on another 6sn7 based unit.

I don’t know... maybe I’m too picky... I did compared Freya + rolling Ken-Rad 6sn7gt as well Sylvania 6SN7GT and RCA 6SN7GT with Modwright LS-100 and Cary slp-05 and on my opinion SQ of Freya not even close to those two units.

Save some more money and get an Aesthetix Calypso