Is the Manley Steelhead still relevant?

I might add that even though I still stand by the Manley Steelhead as being a great unit, for your particular system, I think you should look at truly balanced phono and line stages. As mentioned elsewhere, I use my steelhead in a completely separate system to drive inherently single-ended amplifiers.

@lewm 

Thanks for educating me about the nuances of XLR.  I assumed that if equipment had XLR jacks, that it was balanced, but apparently not.  

From my current perspective, it seems that the A-S would be the most versatile and transparent pre-amplifier that I'm aware of so far.  

If you use one turntable, I don’t disagree.

@lewm 
@dover 

I was reviewing a pre-amplifier short list.  It looks like the VAC signature mkIIaSE qualifies as having both XLR and RCA.  Any ideas as to how it compares with the A-S MP1?

Thanks.

I have always admired VAC preamplifiers, but I have only ever heard their top of the line linestage, not the phono stage, at least not in a few decades. It was excellent. I am not so crazy about the fact that the website indicates the optional phono section uses six 12AX7s. There’s nothing so wrong with using a 12AX7 as an input tube for gain in an MM circuit, but I wonder how they manage to get enough gain for MC, and I am guessing they use an internal step-up transformer. This is suggested by the spec that says the max load resistance for MC is 470 ohms. That’s what you get if you put a 1:10 SUT in front of an MM stage bearing a 47K ohm input impedance. I am also wondering whether they use one of the 12AX7 sections as a cathode-follower at the output. 12AX7 is very not ideal as a CF.  Some of the other verbiage suggests they use transformer-coupling at the output, in lieu of coupling capacitors. That can be fine, too.  But don't settle for my speculations; you need to do some further investigating, unless someone else here has direct experience.