Ugraditus is calling....again. Phono stage?

@chakster so after 100 plus hrs with the PH10 any more thoughts? 

@rsf507 sorry, but i was busy with some other things in august, no time for music, trying to catch the last summer days here. 

@chakster  understand I love the outdoors and play a lot of golf but every night I relax and enjoy a few albums. 

Now that I am not using the Lyngdorf 2170 amp any more with its input impedance restriction, I am left wondering just what the HERRON would sound like in my system.
It seems to have numerous advocates by respected members for sure.
However I do love the simplicity of the PH-10 and the sq is to my ears stunning but you just never know.

Of course that would mean more used gear to sell at an ever increasing loss in this extremely depressed market and not sure I can handle any more of that right now either.

May just keep my eyes open for a used Herron but have never seen one yet.

Unboxed in Aug.11th and connected to one of my Luxman PD-444 turntables since that day. Gold Note PH-10 quickly became my favorite high-end phono stage for MC cartridges! This is one and only phono stage that can drive my 0.05mV output Ortofon MC2000 without SUT. While the most of Low Output MC are about 0.15 - 0.3mV, the Ortofon MC2000 has extremely low output of 0.05mV and it’s the most problematic cartridge for any phono stage i have owned (some of them are more expensive than Gold Note).

While most of my LOMC cartridges plays great at -3dB of gain on PH-10, the Ortofon MC2000 is the only cartridge that i use with +6dB gain (the highest). I’m so hapopy to hear the potential of this cartridges with PH-10, last night i played Ramsey Lewis Trio "Uhuru" (original japanese pressing) to a friedns, all of them prefered the sound of Ortofon MC2000 with Gold Note PH-10 compared to FR-7fz connected via another phono stage.

The Ortofon MC2000 mounted on Sony PUA-7 with brand new silver phono cable i’ve recently purchased from Frank at SignalCable SilverResolution (NYC). I’ve asked him to send me his cable with stripped ends, then we carefully attached Xhadow RCAs and DIN. I’m gonna buy another piece of cable from him soon.

The background white noise is still there with Ortofon MC2000 when the arm is lifted, but i think it’s a nature of 0.05mV output, because another reviewer has mentioned same problem even with dedicated SUT made for this cartridge. But when the needle is on the record the sound quality is simply amazing.

Anyway the Gold Note PH-10 does a great job to drive such low output cartridge in my system with super high efficiency drivers in my Zu Audio Druid speakers (101db). I am very impressed by the quality of this cartridge and this phono stage!

I already started thinking about optional PSU from Gold Note for this phono stage, damn, they got me.

I can’t imagine anything better at this price with so many amazing features!