Zeal. I own PS Audio Phono, and concur with you finding on this phono. It sounds flat, liveless, lack of mid range warmth. I recently purchased a K&K SUT to be used with my Zu103DL cartridge, and found the whole sonic change, not only increasing gain. This combination gives me sweeter, juicier, more musical, and warmth like tube preamp. Image and sound stage are also improved dramatically by using K&K SUT. I also owned EAR 834 Deluxe early for 4-5 months with my previous TT, and feel that K&K + PS Audio reveal more details, more dynamic and lower level bass than EAR 834.
Now I am sitting on 2 dilemmas for upgrading my phono stag set up, whether to replace the SUT with a better one like EAR MC3/MC4 / Auditorium, or to replace the PS Audio with tube phono stage. However, a few of the great features of PS audio phono that I will miss are its flexibility, allowing gain and loading choices and gain control knob to be used as volume. My PS audio (which is latest version) also comes with remote control function.
My current TT set up includes Nottingham 294 and Benz Micro Wood L2 cartridge.
I found the SUT is worthwhile option to explore although a lot of people dislike it.
