Rogue Sixty-six or Conrad-Johnson PV-12 ?

I really like both Mark's at Rogue and their 120 & 150 amps, but the 66 pre can be bettered at it's price range.

Owned the CJ pv-11 preamp which is similiar in design on the line stage. Also owned a Rogue 99magnum, which is a step up from the 66. I kept the CJ over the Rogue. Definitely not dry and harsh. Sweet and warm sounding. The Rogue was noisy and not to my taste.

Jeff:
How's the CJ's phono? was yours a linestage only or had phono?

I had it with the phono stage. The phono stage was even better than the line stage, and better than Rogue's phono stage. The CJ is one of the most musical preamps in that price range. I'd go for it. I owned the CJ for 10 years before experimenting with other preamps. It took me a bit before I found a preamp that I liked better, at over double the cost - with out phono stage. Though you can't use low output MCs with it. I ran a Blue Point Cartridge and an Audioquest high output. Also a Grado high output works good. I'd say anything over 1mv or so.