transistor pre with the sound of tubes

A CODA 07x is fantastic. The Luxman c900u is also similar. I like the CODA better.

Parasound P6 is lovely, and has a very clean audio chain as well as RCA and XLR balanced outs. Bonus - $1600 not to bad of an investment if you later decide to spend more. 
Parasound Halo JC 2 Is a higher end pre at $4500
whar are the speakers?

I can imagine being reluctant to buy a tube amp... but not a tubed preamp. Most tubed preamps don’t radiate much heat and small tubes last thousands hours. The most enjoyable preamps I have owned have been tubed. To my ears and tastes Audio Research creates the most engaging tubed preamps, showing what exceptional preamps should sound like. They are not tubey sounding, but are detailed, natural, musical with excellent bass. I have some friends that really like Conrad Johnson as well. I have heard outstanding solid state preamps, but as natural sounding and musical as they are, they are always missing that little bit of magic that makes them engagingly magical.

+1 Coda 07x

Get a Schiit Freya + preamp and have tubes, no tubes (it actually turns the tubes off), or a passive setting, and it costs less new than anything mentioned here yet. 900 bucks...I have one (original version) and its most recent quad of NOS GE tubes has lasted nearly a couple of years of hard use. It sounds fabulous. Unlike any other tubed preamp I know of, you can check the tube stage against the non tube stage instantly if worried about the tube tonal life.