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

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. 

I will admit, to me, no preamp comes to mind with the attributes you seek that is not tubed. My recommendation for a not cold, detailed neutral preamp would be an Audio Research Reference… as contemporary as you can afford.
 

I guess if push came to shove I would recommend a Pass for solid state. I owned mostly Pass amps and preamps for decades.  

Backert is tubed but is not Conrad-Johnson-tubey, and has all the attributes you desire and none that you don't want.