Phono stage for my system?

Having used a Gold Note PH10 for about two months; I agree with one of the above posts that is was "Okay" not great, but OK.   
I have a very resolving system here and it was noisy to me.  The low end was just OK.  The upper end was lacking in sound stage and imaging.  The mid range was very good; that was its strong point.

Anyway, its out of here and replaced this summer with a Whest Three Signature... honestly the Whest is leagues ahead.   In fact it is so much nicer that I just ordered an upper level Whest.  I will report back once I get it installed and do some comparison to the Three.

@mayoradmwest thanks for the confirmation of the Ayre unit's abilities.  @slimpikins5, the Whest is way above my budget even for a pre-owned unit.  Trying to stay within $1,000 or maybe a bit more for a great pre-owned unit.

Actually there are so many phono stages available on the market, and we have some new every year. It is hard to imagine that any of us can try them all to compare. The questions like this makes no sense, we always end up with a list of different phono stages and personal opinions, but we're all have different cartridges, completely different systems and totally different musical preferences. But more important that none of us never tried all different phono stages. In my opinion this is individual path, it is not necessary that you will like what other people recommend. 

Chakster

We all know you are right, but enjoy the debate anyway!

@sameyers1,
You should seriously look at the Whest Two in the used market. It’s based on the Whest Three, only it doesn’t have the fancy toroid external power supply in a dedicated chassis. But other wise, its not going to be too far off from the Three in performance. You can find these routinely for the $1000 budget you are trying to hit.  If you wanted to stretch things a bit, a nice used (if you can find one) Whest Three Signature will trade from $1800 to $2K and that is a steel as I have seen them go for more.

I have a new custom build 2019 Whest PS.30 RDT SE on the way from London shortly, it's being modified to accommodate my wonderful AT 20ss MM cartridge.  Nothing is changing on the MC side, it's just having the input capacitance trimmed from 91 pf down to 20 pf so that my total input capacitance will run at 150 pf to match the AT 20ss specification and James is adding in a second gain setting for the MM side.  It will have both 43 db and 46 db as I find the 46 db works out great for my system; those are the two gain settings available in the Whest Three Signature.