What is the Phono stage you have finished with?

Hagerman Trumpet.

Nice to see he is making them again, plus the new reference.

Manitunc, I hear you. I guess I would have to hear it to be swayed to step up to the plate. I can buy a lot of records for that upgrade!

I have no plans to replace a Viva Fono phonostage.

Going back over the last 5 years, I went from a NAD 3020 to a Cullen Modified GCPH to a KRELL KPE to a Jasmine 2.0 MKII and just recently to a Liberty B2B. Each move was a significant upgrade. I only use the MM section and use a step up transfomer. FULL DISCLOSURE - I manufacture step up transformes.

I used a Steelhead for a long while, and agree with Lacee that it sounds better from the fixed outputs. Am presently using the Allnic H3000 with very musical results. For years, during the late 80's and into the 90's, I hung on to my ARC SP-10 mkii, which had a very sweet phono section. But it couldn't really accommodate low output moving coil cartridges well and once I changed to a horn-based speaker system (from Crosby Quads), the noise floor forced me to move to a more modern preamp.
While separate line and phono stages gives you more flexibility, you do have to factor in the cost of that additional piece of interconnect, which can, when taken into account, give you a greater budget for complete preamp that includes a phono stage.