Best value phono $1-1.5k

I have demoed it here in my own system, compared to my (upgraded caps, nude Vishay loading resisters and other tweeks) Trumpet. As you might expect, the Trumpet had that special tube magic, with a bit more textural finesse; but the Quasar was very nice indeed, much quieter and was much more flexible in terms of gain and loading.

Which unit was more dynamic?
Which had a bigger soundstage?

I would say that the Heed was more dynamic, likely because of the gain
structure, as the Trumpet, essentially a MM stage being driven by a medium low
output MC cartridge, is being used at it's limit. I don't remember my
impressions of the soundstage differences except in terms of how the textural
finesse translates into a more refined sense of space.

Just a thought about there being no capacitive loading changes in the JLTi. You can of course solder caps as well as resistors into the RCA Load sockets. But IMO, when capacitive loading was required, it was either to tune the top octave of MM cartridges, especially the older types that had high Z and high inductance, but MMs like Grado are quite a lot lower Z. Also the capacitance was needed with some MCs into input stages that were prone to slew rating (distortion - MCs are fast and have wider bandwidth) and then the added capacitances slowed things down a bit by forming a low pass filter with the cartridge source Z. It didn't necessarily make the MC sound better, just helped prevent distortion on the electronics side. Joe R.