personal experiences with quaility preamps...

Depending on the power requirements of your speakers and the size of room, your needs are difficult to determine. I will however recommend several systems I have heard which sound very good. The Bryston 4BST and BP25 preamp can be had for under 3K, and is well spent money. They are capable of handling just about any speaker out there. An integrated recommendation is the Rowland Concentra 1. This is a fabulous piece, more refined than the Bryston combination, but with less power and muscle. There is no magic in separates, they can sound good or bad depending on how they are matched to your system. I also would recommend the BAT VK200 and VK3i, VK30, and other BAT preamps. They are also very good and reasonably priced. The best advice I can give you is to find someone who has speakers and a room size similar to you and find out what they have heard and other info. Then you will have better direction. Jallen

lets see

$3k

you can pick up a sonic frontiers line 3 for arond 1700 or an ARC LS15. Then a solid state preamp Arc d200 for $1500
great system

For $3000, I would go with the used ARC Classic or the D series for tube amp and used ARC SP8 for pramp. Great gear for the price. For the amp, depends what speakers you have and you can decide on all tube or hybrid amp. Sp 8 is the best overall tube preamp with phono for the money.

Dave,

I'm going to assume since you're switching from a receiver you might not want to jump right into tubes, but there are some fine recommendations for tube stuff above.

In terms of solid state, you could have one helluva good start with an Adcom GFA-750 preamp(around $1200 new) and a used McCormack DNA-0.5 Rev. A amp(around $1500) and still have some cash left over for decent interconnects. If no 0.5 Rev. As are available(or if you don't want to buy used stuff) you could buy a new McCormack DNA-125 and still be close to your budget. Another amp option would be the Odyssey Stratos that should work well and only set you back $1000 mail order direct(and you can upgrade to monoblocks later if you want).

The McCormack amp should work well with a passive preamp, and if you're open to that route you should definitely check out the Placette passive unit(the one with 3 inputs). Any combination of these amps and preamps will deliver a huge performance boost from a receiver and meet your budget. Best of luck.

Tim

Lot's of great ideas here for you Dave. Personally, I like Sugarbrie's suggestion of the Blue Circle separates, because that's what I happen to own. There are some VERY viable combos mentioned here too, such as the VK3i with the McCormack DNA 0.5, and ARC combos. I would also offer up the Rogue 66/88 combo as well.

Redkiwi's idea of getting a good integrated is a great plan as well. The Plinius is an awesome machine. I used to own the Simaudio Moon I-5 and also the Electrocompaniet ECI-3 integrateds, and can vouch for their quality.

Go out and sample as much as you can. Everything depends on your taste in sonic reproduction as well as your accompanying equipment, so listen to as much as you can. But the suggestions listed previous to mine are a great place to start looking. Have fun and happy hunting!