Anyone own one of these preamps ?

Not a RP-9 but I did buy a new Rogue RP-5 preamp from Ensemble in DE back in 2017.  I owned it for 14 months and quickly moved on. It was a solid preamp with plenty of inputs and outputs but no amount of tube rolling made it sound satisfactory (to me). I also hated the cheap plastic 50 cent remote and the balance never seemed even. I had to run it higher on one side to make it sound even.  I never had that with any preamp before or after.  I finally settled on a Mac C2500 tube preamp.  It is everything I ever wanted in a preamp and more. 

I have recently upgraded from the Rogue Audio RP-7 v1 to the RP-9 v2, and the improvement in sound quality was quite noticeable.  Better tonal qualities, better definition, and better sound stage with my solid state power amps and Fyne F-702 speakers.  I am very pleased with the upgrade, and the folks at Rogue Audio have told me it should improve even further after about 150 hours.  Again, I am quite pleased with the upgrade.

@stereo5  and  @mike4597 your posts both raise the good question of adjacent models above or below the models my buddy chose….Mike the fact that you owned both the -7 and the -9 is very helpful.    Thx.  

I had the Benchmark LA4. It was very neutral with very precise volume control in 0.5 db clicks. I had the complete Benchmark stack at the time so I am not sure how it would be with other equipment. The DAC 3 was sending the full 12 Vrms analog signal to the LA4 so system synergy was in play.

But I too could not look past its awkward half pint looks, and other than on a tablet, I was not a fan of touchscreens on my hifi equipment. Sold it.