Looking to completely overhaul my preamp section, knowledgeable people needed!

OP, I have both the XSP-1 and the Freya.  I think both offer great values.  I think the XSP-1 is very transparent and mine is dead silent, and even the tone controls function well.  It's a fantastic value if you intend to use the features like the decent phono and the built-in crossover.  I prefer it to the Freya JFET.  I use the Freya primarily in passive.  If you are solely after a tubey pre, I think there are better for not much more money, although, if balanced is a deal-killer, it limits the options.

@primarist. Lots of good advice to consider. As for the Freya and Emotiva, pretty much everything I’ll say should be qualified with "for the price." I think they are both very good, but neither are "giant killers." Sorry for the long post.

Emotiva--I bought it intending it to be a versatile center of a third or fourth system built with leftover/upgraded/evolved out gear. I had considered the Parasound p5, but went with and preferred the Emotiva. IMO, you get a lot of bang for the buck, but I’d agree with Auxinput that compromises are made. I’ve had several Emotiva pieces over the years, and mostly they are good "for the price." IMO, the pros are the versatility and the multitude of features---balanced in/out, decent tone controls, ok phones, ok phono, pretty good analog crossover, etc. I find it to be very transparent with a good volume control and adds just a bit of heft to the music without coloring or smearing it. I usually ran it direct, but the tone controls seemed good--if you really, really listened for a problem, maybe a miniscule tone-suck. That value, of course, diminishes if the features aren’t going to be used. As it goes, other gear, needing fewer of the features, and tube-love kept kicking the Emotiva down the line to really no fault of its own. It’s a competent piece and pretty solid. I prefer the XSP-1 to the Freya JFET. A very nice, lightly used XSP may be going up for sale, if I convince myself tubes are needed everywhere.

Freya--I bought this mostly to try a passive. It has currently earned a home in an unusual setup with roughly $20k in associated gear. It’s a good value for the features---balanced, passive, jfet and tube. The passive works great. The JFET doesn’t do much for me between the tubes and passive, but others like it---probably just due to gear and preferences. I find it to be quiet, but others have noted it to be noisy. In my opinion, the tubes provide a nice option at the push of a button, but it isn’t particularly tubey or fantastic. I didn’t like the stock tubes, and it took awhile to get a good tube match. It’s not as responsive to rolling as a Cary, for example. Some really great tubes were lost on the Freya. Cons--power switch is on the back; volume control clicky clicks which can be disconcerting at first; and tubes continue to burn in the other modes. I think it’s great for what it is. But, if one is looking solely for a tubed pre, I think there are others to consider. For example, I picked up a used Inspire pre for about the same money, and it’s a much better tube pre, but it’s not balanced.

Hope that helps, for whatever it’s worth. A budget-friendly combo I really like is the Inspire pre with a Denafrips Ares, if you can live without balanced and remote.