Looking For The Best Pre-Amp Match For A Pair of Classe Omega Amplifiers

Never been a fan of McIntosh myself either although I have had one friend system with MC60 and a Mac pre with Tannoy Westminster speakers sound nice. But still not my choice.

So Audionet can be on the short list, but it seems very few are on the used US market, at least at this time.

Be curious to know if any other candidates get mentioned.

You asked specifically about Classe preamps and I have used a Classe Audio 6 in conjunction with Classe amps for years with great results. A highly regarded preamp from Classe built in the '90's, but IMHO, one the best preamps Classe built. Probably leans to the warm side of neutral. I have one I will be selling and they are certainly available on the used market from time to time. One disadvantage is they are not remote controlled if that is an issue, but a great preamp if you are looking at the used market. 

There are a few interesting Ayre pre amps floating out there

I am going to suggest a wonderful Line Amp from Benchmark, their LA-4 (Love Mine) NEUTRAL   They also offer a model I believe is an HP-4 more expensive than the LA-4 @ $2500 (remote $100) Hp-4 3K  with Great headphone AMP,  see all reviews. Talk to RORY in Upstate NY @ Benchmark.  Great website also,  30 day free trial period, 5 year warranty   All reviews are outstanding     Hope this helps. Good Luck  Robert

To be honest a lot of these upper tier pre-amps have attributes I really don't care for. Why do they have to use programmable inputs? I don't care what set of jacks are assigned to what input button and the corresponding one on the remote. I just want a high quality pre amp with excellent volume control, balanced outputs, and remote control capability. I don't need a huge electronic display or bunches of other stuff....these newer pre-amps have LCD screens that just look like trouble to me.