Which is a better choice? New, or used preamp?

ya never know. i tried 5 pre's when i was auditioning. 2 were current production units and 3 were older....one was very old. was wanting to stay in the $2000-$2500 range. sound wise...the oldest one (pass eleph) sounded best to me. i tried to live with it but not having a remote killed it for me. went back to #2 in my shoot-out (pass x-1) and have been happy ever since.

the two newer units i tried (bel canto and wyred4sound) weren't a good fit for whatever reason...likely my sound preference. it was hard to believe but i liked the neutrality of the older units better.

so my point is....ya never know until it's plugged into your gear.

good luck

IMO, go for a used tube preamp from a well know manufacturing. That way you could save a lot money for some NOS tubes to tailor up your sound reference and maximize its performance. As far as reliable, I haven't got any bad luck with all the used tube that I bought on this website. Go luck on your quest.

I would focus on ARC used gear. First off if you purchase wisely, you will not lose any of your investment. The reason being that ARC is well established and their gear is extremely well made. So far as it sounding leaner than CJ, maybe their newer stuff but less so their vintage gear which IMHO is still desirable and offers excellent performance with careful tube selection and changing out some of the capacitors to enhance performance. Example, the classic SP-10 pre-amp that Elizabeth notes above. There are reasons its used value continues to increase and is still sought after by audiophiles and they aren't sentimental, believe me! The SP-11 and SP-15 changed the direction, more towards the leaner and accurate presentation but also superb performance, a matter of taste and system matching to be sure.

The fact that producing a new preamp today with quality construction will be more costlier for a manufacturer then that of yesteryear. Also some of them older preamps were built during a period of time when two channel was at its peak and alot of manfacturers were competing with each other for your dollars. This in turn produced some of the best sounding stereo preamps. I'm sure if you are willing to shell out enough money, you can buy a new quality sounding pre.

My recommendation is to buy used, and stick to an established brand. Eventually you WILL want to sell it, and resale value for an obscure brand is usually pretty dismal.

Good luck with the search.