Which phonostage is a heavenly match for a XV-1S

Kondo M7 Phono + Kondo SF-z, not cheap, but final

Don't discount Dynavector's own stage. I've become less a fan of mixing and matching "best" components assembled from high-end magazine lists, and more a fan of common-sense "synergistic" or at least engineered and tested combinations.

So, consider using the Dynavector stage, and the no-load setting, which is optimized for use with Dynavector cartridges (obviously). I have a 20XL, Dynavector stage, VPI Aries, and JMW 10 arm. I'm told Harry at VPI uses this exact setup for demos, and yet you won't assemble this from "Best of" lists from the magazines. Why is this so? Food for thought.

>THE BEST PHONO-STAGE (never mind heavenly :-) is one that >is **INSIDE** a good line-stage. No extra cables, >connector plugs, different power supplies, doubled up gain->stages, etc.

This is a good point, as well.

NO! That is not true. There is nothing intrinsically better about a phonostage inside the pre-amp. In fact, there are many reasons to not put the phonostage in the same box with the same power supply.

It is ALWAYS about implementation.

>>> It is ALWAYS about implementation <<<

very true, but top **inside** implementation aught to outperform top **outside** implementation.

The problem with a lot of good circuits is actually IMPLEMENTATION.
Any really good discrete component will cost often > 10x the price of one that ~ also can do...

I learned that lesson big time during x-over upgrading. No reason at all to think this be ANY different at all with other components.
A.