Well, IT DEPENDS.
You might want a very colourful Mic Pre. Then Hampton, with "sonically colourful" passive parts like Allen Bradly or Xicon Carbon composition resistors, Mylar or polycarbonate capacitors and coloured electrolytic types like Axial Nichicon VX might be the way to go. Add very "Iron sound" input transformers (tiny) and a small size low nickel core output transformer.
As said, sonically it would be a caricature of a good tube circuit, everything overly emphasised, kinda like KFC "secret spice" (a truckload of MSG and deep/pressure fried in industrial oil) vs good southern fried chicken without MSG, Trans fats etc. et al....
[MEDIA=youtube]5O3PK8f8sjU[/MEDIA]
I am not saying that a "colour preamp" is not valid, it is valid. Recording is Art, not science. Nobody will claim an impressionist painting, like say a Gauguin, is an accurate representation of what the artist saw with his own eyes:
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But is it art and even great art, art I appreciate? For sure.
From experience and general feel, what I show should sound pretty similar to "real tubes", specifically something like this:
https://www.tangible-technology.com/tubes/1566/1566.html
The JFET circuit I show will clip earlier than the tube circuit. I see that as problem. I like more voltage on gain stages, when SPL bang on about "high voltage" circuits they are not just Tub Thumping and Welkin Ringing, but they are onto something. The same discrete Op-Amp at +/-15V and +/-60V sounds surprisingly different and the high voltage operation sounds more tube like, in the positive sense of the word.
If the circuit was adapted to run on 48V it should probably clip way before the ADC and it would be ahead of the 24V one.
An output transformer could (SHOULD?) be added. Elaborations can be made to make the follower more transparent.
I'm ok to help a little, once you can really define clearly what result you want.
Thor
