Best Used Tube Based Preamp $2k Or Under?

+1 Erhard. I have always been interested. I think he's close to retiring so you might be in touch about how long to get a unit and follow up if any service is needed.

Can anyone describe where the Erhard falls in the sound spectrum? 

@hightfall my friend had one for a year. Re-Sold it. He just wanted to try it for fun. No real "signature" that he commented about really - was a big collector of tube preamps and has owned and owns several of Dennis Had's Inspire Linestage units, another about to go up for sale later this year.  He felt the sound of Holger's preamp was more dependent the 6SN7 tubes used. Buddy just wanted to try one with tone controls and you might even notice the loudness switch too. Kinda fun.  All in the signal path of course when switched on.  Nobody does that any more, so its really something different. Best to contact Holger and talk with him directly, he's been doing these for a while. Its an option and kinda unique. Are there better preamps, sure. 

I don’t know if there is any flexibility in your budget, but if you look at the deHavilland website, I believe the current price for a new UltraVerve 3 preamp is $2495. I spoke to them a while back and I believe they now include the remote. I don’t have any first hand experience with it, but based on what I’ve read, I’ve considered buying it myself. If you are interested in a Rogue RP1 preamp, which is a decent reasonably priced tube preamp with a remote, I have one that I would consider selling, so you could PM me if you have any interest.

@nightfall Luxman CL38uC, or older CL36u