Dear @edgewear : " but why do you think an active gain device wouldn’t add colorations of its own? "
Where posted I that statement?, every device develops some kind of distortion level.A well matched pairs of bipolars is all what the cartridge signal looks at the very first stage in an active design. Its distortion levels are way low and the length/distance that that signal needs to " walk " is really low too. So, if that phono stage is a good design, the signal that goes to the inverse RIAA eq. is almost direct from there to the output. It's only common sense
In the other side a SUT has a way limited whole frequency range . Any one in this thread knows what is the FR of that Sky 20?: I'm almost sure no one has it.
Today SUT's but one have short FR and nothing even approaching what was measured in my Denon AU-1000: 3hz to 305khz but a vintage FR goes down to 2hz !!!! the best ever and Technics goes from 3hz to 350khz. The Sky's not even dreams with and I think that the Denon AU-340 that goes from 10hz-100khz is even better that what the OP is looking for.
Btw, the today wide band SUT ( silver wire ) is the intactaudio design.
R.