Recommendation for phono stage

Simmaudio MOON has some awesome phono stages that do not disappoint.

Regards

Thank you guys for so much useful information. One can receive quite an education on these forums so it’s a lot for me to think about. Thanks again

lewm, it's alright, you did sort of accuse me of being biased but I simply wanted to hear about people' different experiences.

Anyway, I was cautious about Sutherland phono stages and I didn't check their specs, that's for potential buyer to do, but I did have problems with Acoustech and eventually had to run it through Nakamichi cassette deck which has very high input impedance. Other than that it is an excellent phono stage, at least for MM cartridge. I got a very good sound with it out of my Nottingham.

You might take a look at the McIntosh MP100: Moving Coil and Moving Magnet inputs with adjustable loading (6 settings each); balanced and unbalanced analog outputs; optical, coax and USB digital outputs; and a Mono switch for playing mono records to decrease noise and play the signal correctly.

Good reviews and less than half your budget... 

I have had several phono stages over the years and I’ve been very happy with the Modwright PH9.0XT. I purchased the unit new as a 9.0X and later upgraded the power supply to Tube Rectified. Easy “on the fly” adjustability on front faceplate. It’s around $5,500 new, but you can find them used at a discount from time to time. ModWright support is outstanding, which is why I decided to purchase their KWA150SE amplifier as well. Great people.