Aesthetix Io Sig vs Manley Steelhead-opinions pls

Exlibris, As a fellow owner of the Atma-sphere MP1, I am curious to know what you might not like about it that causes you to want to change to the (very much more expensive) 6-box Aesthetics, fine as the latter preamp may be. Or is it the eternal quest for something different (and possibly better) that drives you?

I have an older (very much older) MP1 that I purchased used and in virtually non-functional condition. Therefore after purchase I was forced into DIY mode, both to fix it and to update it to what were then Mk II specs. This took more than a year's worth of my spare hours. Ralph and his group at Atma-sphere was a great help in this endeavor. (At the time, I owned an MFA Luminescence, as a user til the MP1 was "finished".) This all happened about 5-6 years ago. Then as of last year, and after a great deal of study and brain-picking, I took my MP1 into the great unknown, making several more mods that are similar to the Mk III version but also reconfiguring the phono and linestage circuits in ways that could not really be done in a production unit (e.g., using battery bias in the phono input stage and in the circlotron output stage). The results are fabulously good; the phono is by far the best I have ever heard in my system and with tons of gain for any LOMC. I'd love to compare it to an Aesthetix or Manley (or Raul's phonolinepreamp), to see where I'm at with it. Vinyl now so blows away CDs that I really don't bother with listening to the latter. If anyone with any of these or other top drawer units resides near to me in the Washington, DC, area, perhaps we can have some fun comparing preamps.

Dear Exlibris,
Oy!
I think you've been sipping the same suspect brew that used to affect HP's conceptual powers in strange ways. But, I got it (I think).

It so happens that on the wall of my office, I have a Chinese letter painting that depicts the Chinese name bestowed upon me by my friend who created it, in black inkbrush. The white background is printer paper from Staples. Wonder how THAT sounds. Sorry this is off-topic.

I think I do know what you mean; it's one thing that vinyl definitely does "better" than digital, in that the silence on vinyl sounds more real (to me, anyway).