Best tube preamp ever

The Ypsilon stuff is the best I have ever heard, the phono pre the linestage and the stepups represent a wide degree of seperation from the rest of the crowd.
Black blackgrounds, tremendous speed, linearity and balance, coupled with tremendous levels of separation and refinement.
Throw massive orchestral movements at it and they just resolve everything with such finesse and grace it leaves you startled. Scary good.
I do not own any Ypsilon gear as it is above my pay grade, but if I could afford it I would. I am fortunate that I have a friend who does own this gear and I get to hear it compared to lots of other gear. It is truly light years ahead of everything else. Because of that it comes with a hefty price tag. Unfortunately. As of this date it just may be the best preamp. If there is such a thing as "best".

bump for top line stages with a full function remote

(and a Balance knob too!)

This is a speaker thread i guess you didn't notice.

Even though this is an old thread, gear changes as does what is available to us all after a few years of depreciation and new entry's.

I would add a different take to "the best" from a tight budget perspective versus hi end models.  I've had the opportunity to demo or own Classe CP500, ARC LS17se, Modwright SWL9.0se, BAT VK3i, Canary 980 and Pass Labs X1.

My humble little semi-custom YS Audio A2 Balanced Gold preamp is the unit to beat at a meager $1,600 brand new.  You can tube roll the heck out of it and it rewards with dividends.  Fully balanced, zero negative feedback, tons of XLR connections, balance/gain and remote.  One literally would have to spend over $6,000 to beat what this preamp can provide to your system.

Cheers and Happy New Year!