Stand out phono stages

THank you all for your enthusiastic responses!!!
I take all your responses serious. But want to reiterate that I was hoping to see more of a one prize-winner that outshone all others. HERE is an example: mbl 101es. They by far sound more life-like than any other speaker at the shows I visited. If consumer grade stereo electronics score a 60 and high end audio spoken of here on audiogon score a 90 than mbl scores a 110 IMHO. Forgive me if I praise the mbl's without mentioning the other topguns that deserve to be mentioned. I am sure there are others which I am not aware of that approach the caliber of mbl but that can be saved for another thread. Thanks again.

Pedrillo, you will never find any one item, be it preamp, amp, speaker, cables, whatever that will outshine all others. Everything has it's plusses and minuses, that's just the way it is. If one item was all things to all people, then all the other companies would go out of business. So obviously there is no one superior product.....sorry.

John

Zanden 1200. Vendeatta Research

I have to agree with Pedrillo, when it comes to speakers there are the MBL 101Es and then there is everything else. I haven't found this to be the case with any other component, however; just speakers.

If you want to get way beyond an EAR and JTLI, I agree with Piedpiper on Lyra Connoisseur, Wavestream Kinetics, but would add Aesthetix Io Signature as top for me in no particular order. I've owned all three and could have lived with any one of those three- right now the Wavestream Pre-amp and Phono stages are providing beautiful music my system.

Also the other recommendations will improve your music system. Most (all) are so expensive. Did you have a price range in mind?