Any Hagerman Trumpet and Acoustech PHD owners?

I agree with Dmailer about the sound of the Hagerman Trumpet. It was such an eye-opener for me. It is dynamic over the entire listening frequencies. What I perhaps like best is its balance. Nothing is emphasized. I never get any listener fatigue.

The Trumpet is extremely quiet also. One simply hears into the music more. It has a black background--it's hard to imagine a more natural presentation of music.

I simply love this phono pre. And I think it is a best buy.

I recently replaced the four 12AU7 tubes with Siemens NOS. As stated by Dmailer, it is difficult to believe that the sound can be improved, but I like these tubes immensely. Even more natural sounding and smooth. I think it is easily worth the cost of these NOS tubes. I'm going to try NOS for the 12AX7 in a few weeks.

I use the Hagerman with a Jensen step-up, Atma-sphere MA1s amps, Merlin Millennium speakers, a RPM2 tt w/Graham 1.5t arm, and Clearaudio Sigma Wood cartridge. My preamp is the Placette RVC. The Trumpet sounds great through this passive.

I have finally gotten to the point that I am not chasing my system anymore to find improvements. Maybe a dedicated line for my amps (the Hagerman and tt are on a dedicated line)are on the horizon, but that's about it. It's been a long journey. The Hagerman and the Placette RVC stamped my SYSTEM COMPLETED.

I am using the copper S&B step-up. The transformers are the same but their are a few differences. The Bent stepup is housed in seperate enclosures for left and right channels. The feature I like with the Bent audio stepup is that he can provide a resistor pack which you can easily change resistors on the fly via binding posts on the outside of the enclosure. The Hagerman stepup is ordered with the load that you prefer soldered in place. My understanding is that the Hagerman version does have some type of proprietary load impedance with the trumpet but am not sure if this effects the sound much. You would be able to get more info on this from Jim Hagerman. As far as tube rolling, I have yet to experiment with this as I have had this for only several months. I have heard that improvements can be made with tube rolling this unit but to be honest its hard to imagine how much better it could sound. I am sure I will get around to experimenting with tubes at some point.

Dmailer,
Are you using the silver S&B step-up or the copper one? Do you know what the differences are between the one offered by Bent Audio and the one by Hagerman?

Have you done tube rolling? What are you using at the moment?

I have the Hagerman trumpet and highly recommend it. From a sonics standpoint it is superb with exceptional dynamics. extended highs, and a wide open soundstage. The only real downside that one may have is that it is rather tall and will not fit inside most audio racks. I have mine placed on the top shelf of one of my racks. If you are using a lower output MC cartridge you will need a seperate step-up. I am using the Bent Audio S&B step-up but I am sure the Hagerman S&B is very good as well. The cosmetics on this unit is rather basic but the sound quality IMO is much higher than you would expect for this price level.