Classe' Preamp comparisons

I've owned the B&K MC-101 Sonata, Classé CP-35, CP-40 and CP-50 paired with a CA-300 amp. The CP-50 is a significant improvement over the CP-35 and the best of the lot. I concur on the recommendation above of DR-5, DR-6, CP-50 or CP-60.

Thanks for all of the response! Just to make everyone groan and roll their eyes, after all of the considerations, I've decided to ..... go with tubes! I bought an Audible Illusions M3 becuase I heard one a couple of weeks ago and just became captivated by the silly thing. Haven't had tubes in my system for quite a while so this should be fun!

That's great. NO eye rolling here. I grew up on tubes (literally - from age 13) although I now run all solid state. As long as you're happy with the Audible Illusions that all that matters. Enjoy.

The AI is awesome sounding. I hate dual volume controls...
Time to start tube rolling, you will really notice it when you put NOS mullards or telefunkens in there.

I've read that the factory option phono stage in the CP-50/60 is highly regarded, but compared to what? The phono option seems to add $400-$500 to the cost of these units used (about the same as new!) and they move quickly. So if I went w/o the phono option, how much would I have to spend (used) on an external phono stage to match the quality of the Classe option? Any recommendations?

I've been running a CP-35/CA 200 combination into Thiel 2.2s for about 10 years. I always intended to upgrade the CP-35 (clearly the weak link when I bought the system), but never got around to it until now.

Thanks.