So damn hard deciding which tube preamp to buy!

I agree. It is hard. What I did, was to start from my general experience of preamps and amps. Products I know. Do I like tubes better than solid state? Yes. Do I like OTL? Yes. Should it be truly balanced? Yes. And so on. Plus, a good match both with the amp(s) and the source components, especially the phono stage, in my system.

It would definitely be helpful to understand what amp you have.

buy this ancient beauty

https://www.ebay.com/itm/224555999898?mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&campid=533...

ship to you, use it

or

have seller ship it directly to Audio Classics, let them check everything, and change all the RCA jacks to new gold plated ones. 

fabulous sounding FM tuner, and MM Phono 1 and 2.

Plug it into an Integrated with remote volume!

That's very nice Elliott, but he's apparently looking to breathe rarer air.

Preamp would be used with ht and with a mac 255 multichannel amp. Only using 3 of 5 channels.