What's A Good Upgrade From A Manley Steelhead?

@rsf507 I don't meant to hijack this post :)

I had my own post for my phono stage search. I just bought a Simaudio 110LP v2. It works great. 

I was looking at used Sutherlands and such but I have to save up for those.

To the OP - of course you have excellent speakers ;-)  i would be way more inclined to really work over your Debut / Arm / Cartridge because you have an extremely competent phonostage…but IF the music doesn’t make it to ANY phono stage…. well you understand. How are your setup skills, tools and inclination to seek help ? JR at WAM would be a target phone call for sure. 

AJ who designed your table ( RIP ) was a genius, while i’m not suggesting a new Basis… there is depth in the community of owners and dealers and of course factory keeping them rolling and upgrading them…. Reach out if needed, i know a few of them…. fast friends…

Best to you

Jim

I'm happy with my tavish design classic, no where near the money of some of the above mentioned. I like my phono stage to be tubed. My next step up will be the Adagio. It has everything anyone could possibly require at only 2300 bucks. 

A new belt is about the only thing that would be needed to keep the Basis in fine fiddle.  I own a Basis and I have heard the Phantom on a different Basis table.  Both the arm and the Basis table are designed to maximize damping of vibration, both from external sources and the vibration caused by the stylus tracking the groove.  The sound of this combination is clear, composed, and quiet (very good at even suppressing the sound of ticks and pops because the sound passes quickly instead of resonating).  I personally like this sound at it works well in my very dynamic sounding system (horn-based speakers).  

But, this sound is not for everyone and every system and I understand those who call this sound "dead."  It is entirely valid to prefer something that sounds more lively and "jumpy."  If you want to mix things up a bit, it would be nice to also have something like a good vintage idler drive table like the Garrard 301 or 401 or Thorens TD 124 or the three motor belt drive Audio Note table.  These, with the right arm are more lively sounding than the Basis/Graham Phantom combination--i.e., different, not necessarily better.  At this level, it is more a matter of different taste than something being better than another.  The same is true with the original issue of choice of phono stage; it is hard to say that something would be considerably better than the Steelhead.

@tomic601 Thanks for the input. I did just replace a Graham 2.2 with the Phantom B44 and it was a very worthwhile improvement. I will continue to monitor the used markets for a Phantom Elite. I did email Graham Engineering a few days ago requesting information on their dealer locations so I could perhaps work through a dealer on stepping up the line, but so far they haven't written back.

I'm OK with setup, particularly with the Graham arms as they're so easy to do. (there's a simple cartridge alignment jig that makes things almost foolproof).

I have the Feickert alignment jig also but haven't needed it since selling my Feickert Woodpecker.

I'm on JR's email list and get frequent updates but so far I haven't spoken with him. It's something I might consider once I settle finally on an arm and cartridge.