I cannot say which is the best preamp for you. What I can tell you is this: you really MUST get a preamp. I used to use a dCS Elgar without a preamp (as brainwashed by my dealer, Jonathan Scull, and others). I then decided to acquire the Aesthetix Callisto preamp (upgraded with double outboard power supplies). The improvements were immense: the digital front-end suddenly became musical, soundstage became huge and the loss in transparency was so miniscule as to be barely noticeable. In sum, there is nothing to replace a high quality tube-preamp.