I'm glad the NPC works for you. It's a great unit for the price, especially at $700. The PH-10 and the NPC are two of the most versatile units out there, for sure. I found the noise floor, dynamics, and the transparency a little better with the PH-10, but, like you said, that's in my system, not yours. Also, I run the Gold Note Mediterraneo which came with the Gold Note Donatello Gold MC cart at 0.4 mV. So there might be some synergy at play. Who knows?
As an aside, I don't think anyone is surprised at how good the Mediterraneo is, but I am absolutely floored at how good the Donatello Gold is for $1k. So is my supreme audiophile snob buddy who was very skeptical of the Donatello. I think it slightly outperforms my Soundsmith MIMC Star at half the price. And that's a phenomenal cart! Just so you know, I am also a big PS Audio fan and have their P10 power regenerator, their Directstream DAC, and their amazing Stellar M700 monoblocks (and I mean really really amazing) .So I love me some PS Audio, too! I've heard heard PS Audio is working on a Stellar phono preamp in addition to a BHK phono preamp. I'd expect the Stellar to be solid state with at price of around $1-1.5k and the BHK to be tubed with a $5-6k price tag. They have been working on the BHK for quite some time, I hear. I expect the BHK to be a statement piece and the Stellar to be amazing value.