If boulder is tops what is second tier?

I would put the Einstein up against any of them, not just because I'm a dealer.
Brian

Again I want to thank you all for the help, I am really into the analog portion of my system.
Yes Rauliruegas I know $3k is not much but I beleive that there are many phonopreamps out there that can be bought used at this price range that will compete with or come close enough to the best, for example: Xono, Herron, Evan's The Groove, E.A.R. 324, JLTI, K&K and so on.
Would I be asking too much if I asked the a-goners here to make a short list of 3 or so phonopreamps that deserve to be mentioned?
I now own the E.A.R. 834p and cannot believe how goood it is and that means also how good the sysytem as a whole is.
I would like to push the envelope to a higher level.
Am I missing something here or am I making sense?

I've owned the Lamm and Audio Research Reference and replaced them with the Shindo Giscours pre with built in phono. To mey ears it wasn't even close. Works extremely well with my Zyx UNIverse cartridge.

Since you have recently made other changes to your system and you also state that your think your current phono preamp is quite good, I would recommend you leave things alone for awhile. Give yourself a chance to really get to know the strenghts and weaknesses of your current setup before making any changes.

But then again, assuming you ignore my above advice, $3k is plenty of money to spend on a phono stage. It will not buy you state of the art, nor even the next best, but it will buy you a very high quality phono preamp.

Albert you always have good directions, advise and at times a very interesting experiences you have shared with other members here on the AudioGon in the past...I would like to add a recent experience with a V.P.I. tonearm and junction box wired with Nordost Valhalla.The newly designed arm turned out to be a huge leap in performance over the older design. After along thorough burn in of the wire,I thought the next step was to carry on with more Nordost wire from the junction box to the phono section of my preamp. I expected some better results. However what I did not expect was another MAJOR leap in performance...This single interconnect change literally transformed my system...Wires make a difference all right. The right ones in the right place.