Best Balanced and singal ended pre-amp?

Jman. If you point your browser to this site: http://www.musicalsurroundings.com/ You will find Aesthetix listed in the header as one of the product choices. The last price list I saw for Aesthetix showed the Callisto pre amplifier at $8000. There should be a dealer link on the Musical Surrounding page that you can click on, to search for a retailer in your area. If you live where there is no dealer, I can suggest a friend of mine, who would probably make you a nice offer. Best luck, which ever way you decide to go.

Thanks for your help Albert (and everyone else as well). The Callisto looks very promising and I'm surprised to see that there may be a dealer in my area. This may sound shallow, but the AR would have to beat everything by a wide margin for me to be able to live with it's recording studio cosmetics.

Another option that is being overlooked is either the Pass Labs X1 or X0. Both units offer both balanced and single ended connections. I believe the two chassis X1 to be in the $5,000 to $6,000 price range while the three chassis X0 is around $8,000.00. Both are extremely good preamps.

sf line 3 is an incredible piece...listening for 2 years and it still seems to be improving its sound quality. i suspect the power supply is still adjusting and therefore the sound is improving. good power ='s great audio. good luck

The best and I really mean the very best, I have ever heard is the ThorTA-100 single ended pre-amp. After numerous years of trial and errors with other very good and again I really mean very good pre-amps, the Thor made the magical connention for my Lamm M2.1 monobloc amps and Kharma Ceramique 1 speakers ,to further add to the magic the Electrocompanient EMC1 CD playback has brought the system into another Stratosphere!!! I truley believe the Thor is the orchestrator of this wonderful miracle , so true to the natural music that I hear,without a hint of a system playing , rather pure music baby. Yeah , this system rocks!!!!