Whats a good tube preamp?

Had a run of ARCs, auditioned the BAT 50SE against my c-j 14LS and the new 17LS--the BAT was a bit aggressive for me. Have auditioned the c-j 16LS and feel it has everything I need in our system--more transparency, even better mids, more bass clarity, even better staging and imaging; exceedingly musical--truly, a mini ART; the 17 is a lesser step up (6-6922s as opposed to 4-6GK5s in the 14) and if you're going to upgrade, make it a major upgrade if you can afford it, IMO. CAT not up to 16LS in our system. A bud runs the Joule MKIII and loves it. Audition, if you can all the units you have in mind. Synergism is all of it. BTW, I'm running a c-j MF-2500 with Avalon Arcus speakers. Balance of front-end (tuner, CD player is Accuphase). Good luck

HANDS DOWN THE CONRAD JOHNSON 16LS.WORLDCLASS PERIOD.

Lamm ll2 beats the cat better than any levinson ive heard real musical timbre, no listner fatigue and a bass response to die for Real papable images and pace to boot!

Try the Rogue 99 its a giant slayer.Kills CJ BAT KREll Joule all the big boys.Give it a listen.2495.00 with Phono.you will be amazed.their 66 is a killer unit also.

tube pre-amp plus solid-state amp? i was also hoping that would be the ticket. years ago, i auditioned an ar sp9-mkll - it was so dull & slow, i passed. i really *wanted* to like it - it was so cool-looking! ;~) this was w/an adcom 555 amp & thiel 3.5's, both known for their tendencies to be bright, so ya'd think the ar would have balanced it - no such luck. i can't comment about any other ar stuff, or any other tube preamps - *except* the brand-gnu rogue audio 99, deluxe *magnum* version, that i just got this past thursday nite. well, it's a *lot* better than that sp9 was - great soundstage depth, airy highs, * very* detailed - from the midrange on up. the bass, however, is totally awol, and what little there is, it's very inarticulate. perhaps this will improve when it's broken-in? i don't think so - i've never heard of this aspect of a pre-amp changing much during break-in. and, i'm not talking about head-banger-electronic-type bass, either. listen to the bass on patricia barbour's *inchworm* & *ode to billie joe* on her "cafe blue" album - the bass was *fantastic* w/my linn kairn preamp. in all fairness, tho, my system's lo-end is a pair of bridged adcom gfa555's driving a pair of vmps larger subs, x'd over at 60hz. monitors are meret re's, bi-amped w/a pair of electtrocompaniet amps. maybe other less full-range systems wouldn't even be aware of this preamp's bass deficiencies, but for me, it's a sho-stopper. regretably, this is going up for sale, less than a week old... see audiogon classifieds for specifics. anyone know of a reasonably-priced tube preamp w/an *accurate* low-end response?