New $500 "best" phono stage?

I'm pretty sure your friend was referring to MF's capsule review of the Graham Slee Era Gold Mk V phono stage in the January 2003 Stereophile ("Analog Corner"). According to that review, it lists for $760, not $500.

What Fremer wrote was (note the introductory, qualifying clause):

"Given its price and its miraculous--and this agnostic means *miraculous*--performance, I recommend the GSP Audio Era Gold Mk. V as enthusiastically, if not more so, as I've recommended any product in all the years I've been doing this."

Ken, I went to the link you gave and found the following statement:

The P-75 also has an advanced power supply that operates from a conventional 12V AC to DC adaptor. This adaptor has absolutely no bearing on the sound quality.

I find hard to believe that someone could design a power supply has no bearing on sound quality. If true, it would be nothing short of revolutionary!

What do you think?

I've tried it plugged straight into a dedicated mains, standard household mains and into line conditioners and quite frankly, at this point in my familiarisation of the Dyna's character ,I have not discerned any significant changes to the presentation.
I can't imagine that it's totally immune to line supply and filtration but it does seem unusually unresponsive to the usual tweaking.
There sure isn't much to look at inside the tiny device.I'm assuming that it uses a form of switching mode supply inside the box and that the supplied wall wart is just to step it down to a 12 V current.

Don't know, but if it's one of the Gram's check out reviews (links towards the bottom of the page) @ TNT.

http://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/sources.html

I believe Mr. Fremer meant that particular phono stage was the best he'd heard in a certain price range. He rarely compares machines across large financial boundaries. There is nothing wrong with your Plinius.

jh