EAR 834 line stage

Art Dudley reviewed the EAR 868's big bother, the 912 pre-amp. He said it was the first pre-amp he had heard in a long time that filled him with lust, that it rivaled his Shindo Monbrison ($12,9000). The 868 and 912 were both designed and built by Tim de Paravicini, the two pre-amps sharing a number of design features.

Contrary to the opinion expressed directly above, Paravicini and his designs have a strong cult-sized fan base amongst hi-fi aficionados with deeper roots (and perhaps a better command of the English language ;-) than he. Paravicini's clients include Pink Floyd Studios in England, Water Lily Records in California (whose recordings feature state-of-the-art sound quality, and have been awarded Grammy's for engineering), and Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs. 

Oops. $12,900 ;-) .

I have it  and have used it in the last 15+ years - Denon 103 MC cartridge  - it is great sweet sounding, detailed - very pleasant. I also have the Quad QC-24P Valve MM/MC Phono Stage which is just as good.

I don't have good experience with Solid State Phono stages (Lehmann cube is one I have and is thin and flat sounding)

In fact I have tube mm stages in a Copland CTA 301 MK II tube Preamp
and in a Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista Preamp (I have an EAR SUT MC 3 and the Dynavector Step-up Transformer –SUP-200  for Low MC)

People's millage may vary of course - I like the EAR (has NOS tubes)

In case  u are interested - the turntables are 1 - J.A. Michel Gyro Orbe SE , SME IV, Ortofon Kontrapunkt "b" MC

and 2 Denons (47F and 59L Dynavector Karat 17D2 MC) .....(i have others -Dual 1229, 5000, and a Thorens 145)- yes - crazy - i know

For $13 large, a fella could buy lots of good preowned tubed preamps.  A few used models that pop into mind are:

1) Reference 40 by Audio Research, separate signal and power supply chassis

2) VTL 7.5 Mk III - Same as above, two chassis

3) VAC Renaissance Mk II - 2 chassis

4) Lamm L2.1 Reference - 2 chassis

I’ve never seen an EAR 912 for sale used. 868’s come up every so often, selling at around $3,000 for the "L" version (line stage only), $4,000 for the "PL" (phono and line).