Favorite phono stage in the $500-$800 range?

I love these kinds of questions. You now have 10 recommendations so I will add an 11th - The Simaudio Moon 110LP.

So which of the 11 are you going to choose from? Let this run a few more days and you'll get 11 more. Or you can go to your local HiFi dealer and start auditiong to find the one that works best with your equipment and sounds best to you. And read Stereo5'S post carefully. You may already have all you need.

Paraneer, I think this kind of open call for ideas is just that. Now the OP will likely read more about some of these and finish the research. Some examples might be eliminated as too costly the Quasar lists for $1200, for instance. Then like most of us we settle on something, if we regret it as not for us, then it can be resold and so on. You know the drill, we sold our soul to the internet and lost our brick and mortars.
No more platitudes or moralizing out me.

I actually have a quasar without the larger power supply that Im selling in his range so I don't see why it would be eliminated. Lots of good choices so far and like anything else they need to figure it out

If you want tubes a used Allnic H-1200 is tough to beat. I'm running a Rega P9/RB1000-AT-OC9mk2/Allnic H-1200, this set up is stellar when regarding price/performance ratio. On the SS side the Linn Linto(used) just sounds right even if it lacks flexibility.

"04-10-15: Plato
Definitely the Ray Samuels F-117 Nighthawk battery powered unit."

+1 on this suggestion. They appear used on Audiogon occasionally. Very quiet. I owned one and recently sold it to a friend who is very pleased. I upgraded to something much more expensive.

I also think using the build in stage from Rogue is a good suggestion.