Upgradying Tube Preamp

The linestage is important to drive an amp to its full
potential and provide a way to select between sources unless
you have only one source. But more importantly it should
sound good with your current setup. Unfortunately there is
no clear way to cut to the chase, and "sometimes"
one has to resort to trial and error.

I have heard several Cary products and liked them a great
deal but the AES was not one of them. I think most of us can
generally agree on what sounds good and tube rolling has the
potential to improve this sound but there are products out
there that you can spend alot of money upgrading, however
they are not engineered properly nor do they provide the
proper foundation to benefit from these improvements.

I purchased a chinese tube preamp one time and asked a well
known designer to upgrade it, his response was " what
would you have me do to it? I read between the lines and
buried the idea.

I recommend an Audible Illusions L1 or the M3a if you need
phono and or if you can find one, you can't go wrong.
EXCELLENT SONICS for the money!

I am also in the preamp being the most important camp....it has been for me. The preamp has the most affect on the tone of the signal and when you get it right you know right away. In conjunction with that I have also found the cable connection that makes the biggest difference (although they all matter) is the preamp to amp connection.

Get those two things right and you are more than halfway there IMHO.

Jmcgrogan2's comments make a lot of sense, to me at least, assuming that one already has an established system that they are trying to improve by altering the input signal or modifying the amp/speakers tone. I would take a different view though if one were to design a system fresh in which case I would want a pre-amp which was a straight wire with gain, one that contributed nothing to the source signal and drove the amp optimally. Lots of adjustments to obtain a desired tone can be obtained in a system without including the pre-amp.

In general, I agree with all the comments regarding preamps. Preamp has to work with a low level signal so it's difficult to build one that preserves the integrity of orig signal. Plus the ability to drive amps properly with enough features. From my experience, a good one is usually very expensive.

If I were to start a system, I'll start with speakers. I find speakers have the most influence on the sonic character of a system. Speaker decision will drive remaining components. I will ONLY over spend on a preamp and speakers if I have more self discipline. LOL!

Budget?
I went from a classe audio dr6 to a cary slp-05 that I got for a great deal. Depending on your budget I would suggest the slp-05 used or if that is too much to spend maybe a used slp-98.

I have also heard that the audible illusion preamp sounds pretty good (have not heard it myself) but read on numerous threads that it chews through tubes rather quickly.