Looking for a new phono preamp

My reason for asking about the Herron is informational. As I said before, I haven’t completely ruled out tubes.

I don’t think I’m overthinking anything. I’m just trying to decide what to buy, and the information I’ve gotten from this thread so far has been extremely helpful.

okey dokey

good luck to you on your search and journey

I am using an ELAC Alchemy series PPA 2, having moved up from A Musical Surroundings phonomena  II+.. I am very pleased with it and it is within your $ range, has SE and  XLR inputs and outputs and variable loading plus gain option. Fremer liked it and so do I. Check in out.

I am in the same situation. I will probably build my own with a tube rectifier power supply putting about 300 Volts through 100K loading resistors to the plates of a 6SN7 in two stages of amplification and a passive RIAA resistor capacitor network on the output and some 0.33 blocking capacitors to the preamp. I am not willing to accept the expense of MC cartridges which when they stylus is worn out you have to replace the whole cartridge and I don't want to deal with lead in wires to moving coils fatigue fracturing from too many hours of flexing with the vibrations of the moving coils. I am using a red Ortofon MM cartridge. It will be loaded with 0.1 mF and a 47K resistor. I have had good luck in the past
A cheap Chinese tube phono preamp sounds dead like the speakers are wrapped in pillows so it has to go.
I have been designing and building my own preamps and amps for over two decades and this gives me more freedom to use such things as polypropylene filter capacitors in my power supplies rather than have the inferior electrolytic capacitors I see in the power supplies of amps costing tens of thousands of dollars.

I just sold a much more expensive phono preamp and purchased PS AUDIO STELLAR. It is really great and a bargain at that.

+1 Parasound JC3+
+1 PS Audio Stellar Phono

Both have the flexibility for future cartridge requirements. 
There is a lot of positive reviews on JC3 and the latter upgraded JC3+. Designed by the extremely talented John Curl who resume is vast as he has a designing hand in many manufacturers products such as Constellation Audio, Mark Levinson, etc. A proven established design.

The Stellar Phono is a newer 2020 phono stage designed by the somewhat PS Audio new hire young Darren Myers who impressed Paul so much he gave him the job. Darren is a fellow vinyl enthusiast who designed/voiced the SP to sound great and musical. Lots of positive reviews including Stereophile Fremer. I was further impressed after watching Darren Myers interviews on YouTube. A newer design that hit a home run at it’s price point.