New Schiit Freya or used Conrad Johnson PV-10AL/BL, or?

@kalali 
You should also consider the Mapletree Line 2, you cannot do better at the $800 price point.  It can also be customized for inputs, outputs, gain, whatever you want. Hard to find used and they sell quick but new ones do look nicer. 

also looked at those ,super nice and I got a reasonable quote from Lloyd with HT Bypass but I ended up with the Freya as they had one ready to ship.The money was burning a hole in my pocket!

Line 2CHT  was the one I got quoted a little more than the standard because of the HT bypass.The specs are:

includes the PS 2C power supply, tubes, line cord, and power interconnect cable. The Line 2CHT will have 3 line inputs, with Input 3 being your HT channels. The selector switch position next to Input 3 is labelled HT and it bypasses the Input 3 signal directly to the output jacks, of which there are two pair. You can power off the PS 2C when in HT mode. There is not a "REC" output on the HT model.

@kalali-- I just picked up a Freya a few days ago, mostly to try a balanced passive.  I've only been able to put a couple hours in it, but, FWIW, some very preliminary initial impressions, most echo what others have said.  It needs more burn time and more actual listening.

--the passive is better than the built-in volume control on a cheaper DAC (although it's supposed to be a decent volume control).  a little thin-sounding, comparatively, but transparent with very good detail.  like it just for the passive.  it hope it works as well for the better DAC when I swap it in later.

--the clicking for the volume control on the Freya is a bit disconcerting, at first, but that's how it's supposed to be.

--the difference in gain from passive to JFET to tube is very steep.  takes a few seconds to try to level out, if trying to compare.  also, i'd suggest not clicking from passive straight through to tube, if you were already cranking it in passive.

--I don't yet love the JFET.  Seems to add just a hair of glare and shoutiness.  Take that with a few grains of salt, though.  It's way too early with too limited gear to make a solid criticism of it.

--The tube output sounds ok, and adds some richness (and a tiny bit of noise) and loses a little bit of detail, but this is with just a few hours and on the fresh stock tubes.  It is not a very "tubey" sound.  Very, very neutral compared to most tube pres I've heard, particularly those that use 6sn7.  With time and/or with vintage tubes, I hope it comes "alive."  At this point, it will have a very long way to go, if one is hoping for an appreciable amount of tubeliciousness.

--is the switch on the back really the only way to turn this on and off?

Anyway, so far, I think it's a versatile cool piece.  Seems well constructed, but, of course, no billet aluminum, no multiple copper sub-chassis, no Porsche paint, etc.

Probably a completely different sound from the CJ.

I do wish it had a remote power  on/off.The remote It does volume & input selection.The Freya is in the Harmony Database which is nice.I also wish there was a way to turn the Tube section off when not used.They will eventually make some "Solid State Tubes" for this i read somewhere.They call the ones they make LISST Tubes (linear, integrated solid-state tube) .6BZ7 currently is the tube this will swap out for..in THEIR stuff.