Female vocal preamp recommendation with specific constraints

[dasindevin]

I absolutely love my purple audio biz mk on female voices - has a good amount of colors with it as well
I remember it breathing new life into my tlm103 when using it with my composing partner (who is a damn good singer and I have recorded her on a good variety of pres and mics)
Stacks up pretty well too if you are laying a bunch of harmonies

Also don't mind my a designs p1 and alpha channel

I bought a UA LA 610 mkII for that very purpose (a go to vocal pre) and I really did not like it (sold it after a year of being a bit bummed out by it)
It was very hit or miss - I can only really remember a particularly strident female vocalist that it really worked well on

With your budget you could have the beginnings of a pretty stellar vocal chain and some expandability doing a lunchbox

[litepipe]

can't go wrong with API.

[benmont]

Yep, ended up getting the API A2D since I lacked decent converters too. A friend told me "nobody ever got fired for using API".