Reccomend a good preamp for me.

To add to my previous comment. Found a used TLC-1 online for $400 with great "review" comments by John Atkinson, detailing the feature/attributes of this unit. At this price and an SMc upgrade, one could have a tremendous preamp for $3K! With quality matching much more expensive units.

@ejlif The problem you have is that you need to drive long cables. That means that all passive control systems are out. It also means single-ended preamps are out.

You need a balanced line preamp, and further, one that can drive long cables. You might think that 'because its balanced it can drive long cables' but its not as simple as that. To do that, there are a number of hurdles that the preamp must clear and most in high end audio do not. There is a standard for balanced line operation; most high end manufacturers either ignore it or worse, don't seem to be aware that it exists.


Its called 'AES48'.


If your preamp supports AES48, driving the long interconnects is a walk in the park, and the cost of the cable won't amount to anything with regards to the sound quality. So when you look at these suggestions and talk to manufacturers, ask if their preamp supports the standard. If they don't know about it, or don't know, that is telling you that they do not.

I think there are four preamps suggested so far that support the standard. They are the Dan Sachs preamp (when used with its output transformer to produce a balanced output), the Benchmark and the two Atma-Sphere preamps. There may be others- ask the manufacturer when investigating!

My Shindo Monbrison is probably my favorite piece of audio equipment I've ever owned.  I've used it with a lot of different amps (all tubes, some SETs, an OTL, and some push-pulls, none of them Shindo amps) and it has been fantastic with all of them.  I don't think I'll ever part with it, unless I'm able to go up the chain with another Shindo preamp.

Hi there.  I see we have a couple of inquiries this week for high end prees.  I'll share what I said in my response to the other member.  I had the ARC 40th Anniversary, followed by the ARC Ref 10 and then auditioned the BAT and CAT counterparts, as well as the Soulution 725. I landed on the Octave Jubilee Preamp because it was so much better than the rest.  It's stellar.  A hybrid design (SS power supply and tubed line stage).  You don't need to be into tube-rolling with the Jubilee, but if you ever want to scratch that itch then sonic fine tuning and flexibility can be very rewarding and fun.  Something SS prees can't offer - like the full meat on the bone palpable presentation with the transient speed and dynamic range of the best SS offerings.

I'm a little puzzled when new threads on this topic come up, as it seems to me that it's been discussed at length. Of course, I'm biased. I own a Supratek.

Here's a suggestion - go up to the top of this amps - preamps forum and click on the tab for "all time most popular threads". At the TOP of that tab you will find the "preamp deal of the century" thread. This thread is decades old, with 26 million page views. It is about the budget Supratek preamp. It is a killer.

Other than that, I second the recommendation for the Don Sachs model 2. I like small, boutique builders. Maybe check out Emmanuel Go and his "First Sound" line. I like hand built, point to point wiring, obsessive engineering. But that's just me. There's a lot of good ones out there.

But there are many other *very fine* recommendations on this thread. Personally I don't subscribe to the "best preamp is no preamp" idea. A great preamp is the heart of a fine system. For many reasons.