Except for pro audio products, balanced i/o wasn't really a thing during the Great Age of Full-Featured Preamplifiers, which in my memory, reached it's zenith by the mid-1980s, if not earlier. But we can add balanced outputs via an inexpensive outboard device based on the
Texas Instruments DRV134 balanced audio driver IC! In this manner, it's possible to have your MM/MC phono, headphone jack, tone controls, and tape loop (can also be used for DSP!) and balanced outputs too.
This DIY product from Hypex looks like a decent modern product, though when/if official expansion modules will be offered by Hypex is unknown.
As for tuners, I loved the McIntosh MR71 when I had it, but the other week, I scored a first-generation Sangean HD tuner for $12, and impression so far is that the plastic-y Sangean is the superior performer. And unlike the Sony XDR-F1HD, it has a battery backup. I also have a prewar
"Malahit" DIY software-defined radio in my project queue, but that's a 'nother topic.
I've written my requirements for a preamp before. I'm old-school and my system shows it--my reasons for being old-school bring together a range of influences. One is that if reasonably selected, the old stuff is more than good enough to exceed my (probably limited) ability to hear defects. Another is that it is usually a good value. Still another is that I define the hobby much as I did 40+ years ago, and rather like complicated systems with a wide diversity of hardware that comes and goes as part of the hobby. I'm no minimalist.
One aspect of that is I like to explore obsolete source technologies that by any measure are poor enough to justify the effort required to get the most out of them. There's simply no fun in buying a transparent streamer, DAC, a headphone amp, and 47 pairs of headphones, as I sense is a more popular approach these days.
But a range of obsolete technologies means needing a range of inputs to be managed and a range of processing options to get the most out of them. Thus, a useful preamp for me must include a range of inputs (the more the better), at least including a phono input, and line inputs for a tuner and a couple of CD players. And I would like three tape loops--computer (through an ADC for the recording side and a DAC for the playback side), cassette deck (because shut up that's why), and an open-reel deck. And, because I believe in proper room correction, I need a processor loop, in which I use a Yamaha YDP2006 digital parametric equalizer which could someday become a MiniDSP device. For outputs, I would like a line-level output upstream from the volume control (for a headphone amp), and a preamp output to a power amplifier (balanced if possible).
And, of course, I need tone controls, because I sometimes want to fiddle with spectral tilt to make what I'm listening to sound better as a matter of targeting rather than correction. And I would want them to be fully bypassed when they are not needed.
The phono amp needs to have adjustable cartridge loading, but supporting moving-magnet cartridges is good enough for me. I'm not willing to spend what it takes to make moving-coil cartridges work well.
Nice to have, given my very powerful amplifier, is a way to bypass the line-stage amplifier. When I'm listening to the radio softly at night, I bypass the line amp just to give myself more volume-knob range.
A remote would be nice, but that bridges generations in ways that make the solution space even more nonexistent.
No preamp I know of fulfills all those requirements, but I've gotten close enough at present with a B&K Sonata MC-101 and a dbx 400 tape-loop expansion system. The phono has user-serviceable insertion points for capacitors and resistors to tune the input loading. It has a two tape loops and a (bypassable) processor loop, and I use the dbx 400 to expand one of the tape loops to provide three additional tape loops, plus a line-level output from the record bus (not volume-controlled) for an external headphone amp. These were available with balanced outputs, but mine doesn't have it and I've implemented that using a balanced-output amplifier.
An Apt Holman would also do what I want, and I may try one if I find one at a good price when I'm in the mood.
I figure the SINAD for all of this is around 90, which is good enough for me, even if the downstream amp provide 25 dB of gain.
The one requirement that this system abundantly fulfills is that nobody I know will even know where to start to turn it on and make it work.
Rick "like a truck with an unsynchronized, dual-range 12-speed manual-shift transmission" Denney