Budrew,
How about some purple & orange answers instead? I was running a full tubed system to warm up the sound of digital. My phono preamp is the Phono stage option on my BAT VK-3i, which is solid state. My cousin told me don't buy that pre-amp w/ phono rca's on the inputs. As this way the temptation to connect a analog rig will not accur.
For years I was a interconnect & speaker cable of the month member. Always trying to tame the brightness of the metal tweeters w/ Violin highs, & force a Piano out of my speakers. To me the piano on cd sounds so bad, that I no longer own any piano related music on cd.
With Vinyl for the first time Heifetz's violin is playing to full extent, & gosh their is a baby grand piano being played in my listening room for the first time ever!
Budrew, as Mikey the cereal kid - try it, you may like it???
VALLEYPLASTIC, Dave thanx for joining in on this thread. As another Vpi Scout fully satisfied user, & recent analog re-visiter:0)~