OP,
"Do you think the Hagerman competes with phono stages in the 3-5 K price range?"
Absolutely: "good enough, DONE"
Speaker/Amp/Preamp/Sources: in that order I keep rejecting ... until I achieve ’involving, dynamic, revealing yet relaxed’.
My MX110z’s phono, my friend’s Hagerman Phono, I think either are end game/stop looking, if it breaks just get another one: thus they are equal to anything at any price even though I haven’t heard the other choices.
Done for Now: If my good enough (had to have remote volume and sound as good as my prior Fisher 80az tube mono blocks), Cayin A88T amp broke, it would be a total ’now what?’ research situation (limited by my need for 16 ohm taps).
Done. If my Sony xa5400es sacd player died, my MX110z tube tuner preamp died, my TT81 died; my Acos Lustre GST-801 tonearm died, my X2000R Reel to Reel; my Mitsubishi LT5V Vertical TT or Luxman SQ-N150 Integrated Amp died: I would search for money not bother with any research, just gather $, whatever it cost to get another one.
Only scarcity would force me to research, luckily, age 76, I have the patience and alternate equipment to keep listening while searching/waiting.
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My friend may one day want to try a low output MC cartridge, and I imagine he, like me, would use a SUT so he can keep his ’done’ Hagerman Cornet2 MM Tube Phono stage. He could get the Hagerman Trumpet MM/MC discussed here, expect very similar sound,
but he has an early Cornet 2 Kit and it has a rectifier tube. seller sent him a variety of good but used tubes, including 3 different rectifier tubes. We were both quite surprised how much difference the rectifier tubes made. I never experienced that with my Fisher 80az 5V4 rectifier tubes which I checked twice a year and renewed a few times over the nearly 50 years I used them before selling them to Steve at VAS. That's how you know for sure that tubes last a long long time.