Tube preamp for techno and other bass-heavy music?

What's your budget? My VAC tubed preamp has excellent low bass extension 8500.00 new and 4300.00 used, my Manley Shrimp 1800.00 new, has a full punchy bass but does not have the weight or extension of the VAC. I had an Audio Research LS15 which was decidedly light weight in the bass in both fullness and extension. I would venture that a solid state preamp is going to be your best choice unless you spend big bucks and even then you will likely get more thump from solid state if that's what you are looking for.

I owned a BAT VK-30 tubed preamp and home demoed a few others thanks to great dealers nearby. I always felt the best part of the electronica genre was missing-the leading edge of bass transients. When I went back to a SS preamp BAT-VK-40, and then my standby Rotel RC-1090 my wife asked how it was working out and my answer was "bass is back!" The tubed preamps did lots of other things well but ultimately for me using a SS preamp was the most satisfying overall sound. Crystal Method, Underworld, Aphex Twin, etc just didn't have the impact with the tubes. If I had two hifi rooms I would have tubes in one and SS in the other. The tubed room would be the pinky-up wine, tea, classical, jazz, and sophistication room. The SS room would be coffee, beer, tequila, rock and electronica belching out loud room. Right now it's all happily coexisting.

I'd say my target budget is around $1500, and I definitely want to stay below $2k.

For me, part of the experience with this kind of music is being able to feel the music, which you can definitely do with SS equipment even if your system isn't running hot in the low end of the frequency domain. If I can't get this from a tubed preamp in my price range, I'll have to go with SS.