I had been using a Schiit Saga 2 preamp before purchasing the Audiophonics AP310. The latter is in my opinion way better insofar as it is silent (no pops, no noise at all when turning it on/off), it has a 12v trigger that works fine and a stand by mode you can set from the remote. It also has an xlr input and no issues at all when symmetrizing a single ended incoming signal. Build quality looks really good and the price is lower that other preamps (e.g. the above mentioned shit costs approximately 400€).