Analog newby question

Ohlala, I considered the E.A.R., Black Cube, Mistral, Phonomena and the Monolithic. Read reviews, talked to salesmen, read posts, looked at pictures of the units.

It was a phone conversation with Greg, the designer of the Monolithic that made the sale. He's an awful salesman--that's why he made the sale, though. He described to me the rationale behind the design of the preamp and how it worked. I made my choice without hearing any unit (I'm the psychic, right?). Greg's words were exactly what I was looking for in a phono stage. It was based on a hybrid design and with similarities to the Klyne preamps--only cheaper. I have a high performance (for the year 1980)low output MC preamp (Biotronic Gestalt) w/outboard PS and I wasn't totally satisfied--it was super clean and flat but lacked something... The Monolithic totally blew it away (this without the dual mono power supply). And the two previous owners of my other preamp upgraded to a Klyne SK-5A!!!

I have a 'feel' for selecting components, what can I say...I bought my JMlab speakers without ever hearing of the brand before nor auditioning them! Same for my Cambridge D300SE CD player, my Soundstream/Krell DAC, my Melos SHA-3 preamp, the Ortofon X5 MC...Mail order all of these.

I don't know if this will help you. Just make sure you have definite goals regarding your system and what you want it to do. I do. And I'm focused.

Regards,

I have a heavily modded Rega Planar 3 with a moving coil Benz 3 (old one, nowdays) going into a benz PP1 phono stage.. it is absolutely CRUCIAL that the cartridge is properly installed with azimuth, offset, VTA, and antiskating set right. Otherwise, you'll miss alot or damage your cartridge and records. Once you get into it you HAVE to get a wet-vacuum cleaner. I have a nitty gritty. There is really no other way to clean records, and you can hear the difference. I also have a second system with a rega cd player (original planet) and really the LP system is more revealing, more detail, etc. than the cd.

Hmmm...I just removed a barely-used mahogany AR table with Linn arm and Adcom Hexacoil...with OE dust cover, felt mat, new belt, Souther clamp, a few cleaning brushes, etc.
I only have 50 or so LPs, and simply don't want to invest ina good phono stage. So I got a great tuner instead.
Since I have the original box and packing, I could ship this stuff properly and carefully.
I was going to sell the whole shebang to a dear friend with 1000+ jazz records, as his wife was going to buy it as a holiday gift, but I menioned it to him and she's pissed that it's not a secret anymore, so she won't buy it for him.
Any takers out there? $300 +sh should do it....
Hapy holidays all. Ern