Back to the OP’s question - you need to ask yourself what you are looking for in a pre...? My personal wants from a pre have changed over the years, to where now all I want a pre to do is select my source and control my volume. To that end, the C1 is overkill. BUT, the BillD C1 is DEAD QUIET, completely transparent in the signal path, and quite flexible. In my opinion, that’s all a pre should do. Further, in my opinion, if your pre has a specific “sound”, then it’s doing something it shouldn’t - adding or subtracting from the source.