Thinking out loud: solid state Linestage < $2k?

van alstine products are excellent and provide tremendous performance and value

What exactly do you mean by “a little forward in Presentation?”  Are you looking for a lot of detail or are you talking about an upfront soundstage?

@soix  good question. I think I’m wanting a not laid back presentation. 
It makes sense in my head but I’m not sure I can put that into words.

@jjss49  the solid state Vision SLR pretty much ticks all the boxes. That may very well be my next.

PASS jump on ASAP!!

@ebm under $2k? I wish. 

Wyred 4 Sound STP-SE which is on sale. Owned one for seven years and it plays and sounds great with anything. Also there is the ability to upgrade it in the future.

https://wyred4sound.com/products/pre-amps/stp-se

Works with your amp as I've used it with Kismet and Khartago in the past.  The AVA is also a great choice just not as flexible for the future.

The LDR3000P is Tortuga Audio’s flagship passive preamp
https://tortugaaudio.com/products/passive-preamps/ldr3000p-v25-passive-preamp/

Or their other passive: Tortuga LDR3.V2 Passive Preamplifier
https://tortugaaudio.com/products/passive-preamps/ldr300x-v3-preamp/

REVIEW: https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/tortuga-ldr3v2k-passive-preamplifier/

@patrickdowns the LDR V2 is very interesting. Certainly under budget. 
Thanks I will definitely rabbit hole this out

With around a hundred Watts and Klipsch speakers; I’d go passive, too.      I was a minimalist, for decades.      One of the purest presentations I ever had, was with a Placette in my system.      Virtually nothing to break/go wrong, as well.      ie: https://tmraudio.com/components/preamplifiers/placette-audio-passive-line-stage-stereo-preamplifier-...      New: just slightly over budget:    http://www.placetteaudio.com/passive_line.htm      What I owned:  http://www.placetteaudio.com/remote_control.htm          As an experiment, you could try something like this, first: https://www.amazon.com/Nobsound-Precision-Passive-Controller-Preamplifier/dp/B07GRLV7XG

@rodman99999  thanks, I have a Schiit SYS I ran for more than a year that worked fine other than only having a single set of outputs. It was definitely quiet but kind of boring. I definitely need 2 sets of outputs.

I get it.      Happy hunting!