Think about what Keith Herron did in my case: He took a used pre-amp that was discontinued ten years ago and reengineered it to meet my specific and unusual needs. Knowing I would want as much headroom as his design was capable of, and that I would forfeit some un-needed gain to get it, he replaced two of the stock phono amp's 12AX7 tubes with 12AT7's, listened to the amp, substituted some parts to maximize it's sound quality, burned in the amp, and sent along the unused 12AX7's incase I wanted to try the amp with them installed. All for $1225 shipped! He then emailed to verify that the PH-1mm had arrived safely!! I can't imagine anyone else going to all that trouble for what is chump change---his time is surely worth far more than the hours he put into my amp. I made sure to go to his room at last weekends T.H.E. Show in Irvine (wherein he was getting great sound, one of the couple of best systems I heard all weekend), and he couldn't have been nicer. He talked about tube swapping, the sound of passive parts, etc., and I'm telling you he is a happy, non-egocentric, down-to-earth guy. Maybe it's being from and in the Midwest, 'cause another guy I spent some time talking with was a very similar kinda guy---Bill Johnson.