VAC Owners:Outboard Phono Stage?

I have been following this thread with interest- since a Steelhead was mentioned earlier, and I just switched from that to the Allnic h3000. It is far too early in the process to make any concrete judgments, but the Allnic seems to sound far less compressed than the Steelhead. It does need to break-in though, which is one of the reasons for my hestitation in providing a glowing review. The other variable in my system, my line stage, is temporarily in a holding pattern- a Lamm Reference line stage, which is making all sorts of nasty noise, and obviously needs to be fixed. I substituted a Joule LA 150mkII, which, frankly, is far too lush in combination with the ML2 amps (the Joule might be the ticket for someone with big solid state amps of the analytic variety).
The other interesting thing is that the Steelhead really only sounded great through the MM inputs, rather than the step up transformers- through the transformers, it exhibited some unevenness across the spectrum. The Allnic doesn't seem to behave that way at all.
Oh, and the Allnic is pretty gorgeous, if you are a gearhead. :)

Alonski, I bought the E.A.R. MC4 SUT I've been demo'ing today. I am sitting here spinning a few LPs and just smiling. Glad we both arrived at the same conclusion...If you're ever in Texas, let me know and stop by !

Jfrech! This is all your fault and I'm very grateful. The sound improvement for the reasonable price is really amazing and very rare these days.

Thanks for the invite. Likewise, if you find yourself in the San Francisco area, drop me a note and come by for a listen!

Alonski: I bit late to this party perhaps, but thought I would share a few thoughts. Back in May, I had an opportunity to A/B my EAR 834p Deluxe with the Herron VTPH2 for a couple weeks in my system. Ultimately went with the VTPH 2, as it presented so much more of the music unveiled than the EAR, at least within my system. Forever curious, I recently had an opportunity to audition the Zesto Andros against the Herron, and presently still A/B-ing between them. Tough call here. Although the Zesto has a significantly blacker background, great timbral representation of instrumental sources, and some nice moments with transient clarity, the Herron still images and lays out the sound stage far better. It also offers a bit more upper frequency clarity, and not so much the slight warmth that the Zesto, and of course the EAR, present. Low frequencies are solid and again, true-to-source timbrally, but I find the Herron to be equally so, though I've heard others express some disappointment with the Herron's low frequency presentation. The Zesto offers a plethora of mc load adjustments, etc, on the back panel. The Herron sim. with load plugs, although I run it unloaded for my Dyn XV-1s and it seems to really sing. Lots of positive reviews out there on the Zesto, but I must say, the Herron stands toe-to-toe, IMHO.

I agree with Mbump. I have not heard anything in my system better than the Herron VTPH-2. no upgraditis on the phono preamp front.