Spend more money on the amp or the pre-amp?

For that kind of money, I would look for a good integrated amp.
Some really good integrated amps out there these days.

You probably don’t need to even consider separates unless your budget is more than a few grand. IMHO.


Oh, @soix beat me to it!

+3 exactly what I was thinking.

Integrated would be a way to go within your budget.

But if you aspire to own separates and possibly extend your budget to $1049.00, I would look at Schitt Audio's Vidar amp and Saga preamp. 

Yeah. But let's extend it to $8000, what then?

I'm on the integrated boat too. I spent more than $800 building my Pass F5 and that thing is crazy simple. No soft start. No speaker protection. No current limiting. Class AB amps can be built cheaper because you don't need the hulking power supply or heat solutions. That said, you don't need any heat solutions for a pre-amp, and the power supply need only be very consistent and very quiet. 
If all I had to spend was $800 I'd buy a pair of Pass ACA amps and blow the rest on a pre-amp.