transistor pre with the sound of tubes

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.

I've left my tube preamp on for a few years now. The only time I turn it off is when I'm going away for extended periods, or if there is a thunderstorm. I compared the tubes that are in it to new ones and the nos tubes still sound better even after a few years of being on 24/7.

Like others have said, not sure what "mature enough" means. What I will say is that if you were to get a tube pre you're likely going to want to switch out the stock tubes. Most of the new production tubes are so clean that they're almost like transistors. You're likely going to want to roll in some NOS Mullard's or mazdas or brimars or amperex to get that "tube" sound.