Budget vacuum tube preamp?

At some time one does have to just hook it up and see how it sounds, but narrowing down the field IMHO ultimately is much less exhausting than needlessly and repeatedly buying and selling and reconfiguring.

I feel Unsound is right. Anyone doing their homework should consider what an impedance mismatch between the amp and preamp will do to the sound. Start with the output impedance of the preamp and the input impedance of the amp. Even beneficial specs guarantee nothing regarding SQ, but gives you a shorter list of preamps to try and preamps to eliminate from consideration.

Go to their website & check out the Norh ACA-2B tube preamp. It uses two 6DJ8 tubes and operates in pure Class A. I have had a few of the budget preamps mentioned above (like the AES) but the Norh performs far above its retail price. I owned one a year ago and regretably sold it. After the buyer received it he said that he was very sorry that I had to sell it. He also stated that it beat every preamp he owned prior, like Audio Research and Conrad Johnson but he didn't mention which model numbers.

I finally picked up another used one on Audiogon (very rarely seen for sale) a couple of weeks ago and it feels darn good to have such a outstanding peformer placed back in my system and it is connected to a solid state amp with very good results. The ACA-2B retails for $299.99 but the shipping is $181.00 from Taiwan. It does not have home theater pass through but after you hear it you will soon get past that problem.

Be careful of the very high 10,000 ohm output impedance of the Norh ACA-2B preamp. I'd try it at the price were it not for that.

Actually the Norh ACA-2B is made in Thailand not Taiwan, sorry for the mistake. It goes back to what Unsound & Foster 9 said, make sure that it can match up (impedance) with your power amp before purchasing.