Quote of the week!

to answer the original poster's question, I would say, "no"

well, especially if you consider DIY. that's when your real bang for buck can step in. it's easy enough with kits and pre made PCBs like from SCA, ClassicA.P.I., Hamptone, JLM Audio, FiveFish. Once you get the hang of these, the options for affordable DIY open up even more, and you can start building 1176, LA2A, REDD style tube preamps, etc

but also the majority of 500 series preamps are well under $1,000

and then you have the single channel units from Universal Audio, Focusrite, Daking, Grace (two channels), and the four channel from Sytek, etc, all under $1,000

I have a hard time believing with this many options available that "the DAV BG-1 is the best bang for the buck pre under $1,000." One, because I generally prefer transformer based preamps, and two, because the simple odds of 1 vs 100 don't seem to be in 1's favor.

all the BG-1 praise is nice enough and all though... there's just a lot, lot more options out there at $1,000