Can any preamps for $2-3k touch Auregies-L?

Gopher- check out the Mastersound EL34 integrated amp. It's really, really good for the money. Since it's PSET, probably gets you the soundstage you are looking for.

Keithr,

I'm not interested in changing amps right now. The Torii is excellent and exactly my taste, I just suspect, like most power amps, it can be improved with an excellent preamplifier.

Mystang,

Yessir, I'm no newbie to tubes. I didn't even want to consider pres until I had gotten my core sound down. http://www.decware.com/cgi-bin/yabb22/YaBB.pl?num=1309716798

I'm using Black treasure 6ca7s, RCA 5u4gs, National 7308s and have some NOS OA3s on the way.

The amp is excellent, it was just a more affordable upgrade than planned and my OCD side wants to take it to the next level.

Gopher
Thnks for the link it's a great read

Welp. I played with the auregies l on my torii in a friends rig today and we both seemed to prefer it without the shindo... At least on his gear.

Comparing my torii solo to his tubeguru.hu f2a push pulls, I felt the tg/shindo offered a bit more body and refinement. The torii had more transparency and I think with some tweaking of the bass knob it could have closed the gap.

The big difference in presentation was staging, more specifically soundstage width. My torii did fall behind there but I suspect the right pre could put it in the lead.

I decided my friend's system was different enough that Shindo really does need to be heard in my own rig--so I bought another Auregies-L.

Hopefully I'll see it by weeks end. I also have a Dodd Battery Buffer headed my way for experimentation and comparison with the Shindo.