Vacuum Tube Preamp for Solid State Power Amp Pairing

This!

This is a Hovland HP-100 preamp.  To over-simplify things, there are two types of tube preamps, the kind that appeals to the audiophile side of you, and then the one where you just like to sit, relax, and listen to music because it sounds warm, has a full sound, inviting, and takes the edge off music.  This Hovland is the latter.  If you want ultra detail & speed, that'd be Audio Research.  I have one of these Hovland pre's and it plays well with my solid state amps from Pass, Esoteric and Audio Research.  Lastly, be sure you use a good power cord, like a Shunyata Python CX or Zitron, or even better yet, a Anaconda CX/Zitron.  If you got the bucks for the newer Alpha V2 or even better Sigma V2 power cords, those are something else.  One of these cords plugged into my AQ Niagara 7000 really makes a nice difference.  

I am not that familiar with linestages in your price range, but I did notice that some very good vintage ones were mentioned, like the EAR and Hovland.  However, I believe these did not come with remote control.  I think remote control of volume is a necessity, which does remove those few brands that don’t offer it, like Audio Note (Audio Note is also disqualified by price, but certainly not by sonic considerations).

@terenthia Since your amp has balanced inputs you might consider taking advantage of that. We don't make a balanced preamp in your price range but you might be able to find one of our MP-3 preamps used for that price.

The advantage of balanced lines is better cable immunity; IOW they can be more neutral and so more musical.

I like the MP3 and its big brother too.  But, I don’t recall it coming with remote control.  

I love the tube preamp with a solid state or hybrid smp.  My modded JC1 Parasound monoblocks sounded fantastic with the Aric Audio Motherlide II tube preamp.  I also have the PSAudio BHK 300 monblock hybrid amps fed by the Motherlode XL tube preamp - awesome.  I have also paired the PSAudio M1200  class D hybrid monoblocks with Aric Audio tube preamps with great success.  One reason I like tubes in the preamp is that they are lower maintenance than tubes in amps - at least ones without automatic biasing.  I also like the solid state amp grip better on the low end of the frequency spectrum.