Preamp recommendations for Quad IIs with ESL-57s

I bought my 57s in 1973 and ran them until around 1990, when I shelved them for a pair of Crosby modded 63s. When I moved from NY to Texas in 2017, I sent the 57s to Kent McCollum for a sympathetic restoration, had Bill Thalmann restore my Quad II amps, put really good glass in them and have been very pleased with the results- I use this as a second system.

I wrote an article a couple years ago that contains some good info on assembling such a system, including amp alternatives. You can find it here.

As for preamps, I had an ARC SP 3-a-1 back in the day and certainly would have liked a Marantz 7 but both are now spendy. I located a clean McI MX110z, which is a tuner/preamp with a boatload of tubes and had Thalmann restore that as well. The McI was known as a good sounding piece and priced lower (at least at the time I bought it in 2017) than other high quality preamps. It is also "of the period."

British vintage valve equipment market is obviously different than here in the colonies. 

@scrumpymanjack has this Quad preamp of yours been refurbished since new? If not, its in dire need regardless of the condition of the tubes.

I am repeating this; I forgot to mention that if the unit has not been properly refurbished recently, the filter capacitors in the power supply could cause the power transformer to fail. I would not run the preamp until this work has been done; a power transformer for this preamp will be a difficult thing to find and likely expensive when it finally turns up.

+1 on the preamp @russ69.

Hi. 

Thanks very much to all who responded. Very grateful for the information and thoughts. Will follow up on all recommendations. @atmasphere, yes, the 22 has been refurbished.