Conrad-johnson TC5 or Cary SLP 05 ?

Let's be fair on the output impedances. Here's a quote from Stereophiles measurements (available online) of the Cary SLP-05:

"The SLP 05's output impedance is specified as a usefully low 400 ohms. However, I got significantly higher values for the unbalanced output of 1500–1600 ohms in the midrange and treble, rising to 3400 ohms at 20Hz, with similar if slightly lower figures for the balanced output. The Cary preamp needs to be used with power amplifiers having input impedances of 10k ohms or greater if the bass is not to sound a little lean."

Mesael: "With no chance for home audition", I don't think you could go wrong with either. Don't let "inverts phase" affect it, it's really a non-issue. The word is about half of the recordings are reversed anyway. FWIW, I chose CJ preamps for my system.

My CJ amp inverts phase, just switch the speaker wires on one end, ie black to red and everything is fine.

I too will chime in on ignoring the phase inversion aspects. Though I do have a question or request for clarification on Stanwal's comment: "just switch the speaker wires on one end, ie black to red and everything is fine."

Is that on both speakers or just one speaker?

both, but either just at the speaker end, or just at the amp end, not both speaker and amp ends.

Hello the newer ET-5 is the best of both worlds and is the baby Gat preamp which is Very close in sound quality to the flagship- GAT that is over $18k for under $9k this is the ticket look at Tone magazine issue 39.