best phono stage under 10k

I've had my steelhead for about 12 years.  It's an amazing product.  I've never had a desire to try anything else.  It destroyed the BAT, Sim, audio research units of the day I tried and cast off for the manley.  BTW, it sounds a lot better as a phone pre only, ie running into a preamp.  It also sounds best running my Benz ebony LP-S into the MM input. 

The steelhead has plenty of gain for my benz using the mm input.   I've tried it both ways and far and away prefer using the mm input and have no gain issues.

And I do believe the mc input runs the signal through a step up transformer.  However, every time I've tried using it I've switched back to the mm input.  I've used a number of different lo mc cartridges with it.