Preamp advice needed


I sold my B&W Nautilus 803's here several years ago. I needed the money but I really miss them and very much regret selling them. I have a pair of Nautilus 805's to get me by until I manage to get something closer to my 803s. I also have a Rotel RB1090 2 channel amp that I don't plan on replacing. It's a good amp. My CD player is an Adcom GCD 750. I also have some pretty decent Audioquest interconnects and speaker cables and an M&K V125 sub. For some time now I've been using the preamp side of my Rotel RA-985BX integrated. It's not too bad. But I'd really like to replace it with a nice preamp. I'm not interested in home theatre equipment. I just want a nice 2 channel preamp that I can also connect my sub to. I listen to a very wide variety of music from classical to hard rock. Sometimes it's loud but mostly it's at an average listening level. There are so many choices out there I don't even know where to begin. I'm willing to spend up to around $1000 for something used. I was thinking tube. I had heard a CJ PV10 a long time ago so I was headed in that direction but I never heard it on my equipment. Not sure i'd be happy with tube anyway but maybe I would. Just not enough experience with them and not sure how that would go with what i have now. I have seen some Krell's on here for what seem like good prices. I mention Krell because I had heard some Krell equipment several years ago and liked what I heard. I'm sure that the KRC-3 would blow away the preamp side of my Rotel integrated. And FWIW I love the Krell styling and am a big fan of "Forbidden Planet" LOL. Anyway, I was hoping that I could get some good advice from some people here. When I look for solid pre's in the $1000 range here I see many that I've never even heard the names of before. I don't care about remote control but it could be nice. I do hook my current system up to my video equipment and watch movies in 2 channel so I want enough connections to handle a few line level inputs. I don't need phono. Thanks in advance for any advice. -keith
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Showing 1 response by steuspeed

Manley Shrimp for $880.00. This will give you a good taste of tubes. Easily re-sold if you dislike it for any reason.

http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?preatube&1271548208&/Manley-Shrimp-Preamplifier

I will say the Rotel amp has a pretty flat sound stage. It will limit your results. Maybe consider a nice integrated as another option.