I owned Shindo's Monbrisson for a while and then moved-up to the Vosne-Romanee. The phono stages are very good alone but, as you have probably read or been told, a high quality step-up transformer really make the Shindo phono stages sing. The Auditorium 23 step-ups are made for Shindo preamps and they are truly excellent. For about $1k it is well worth it. The Steelhead is very good but doesn't have the refinement of the Shindo/AU 23 - its hard to explain until you have actually heard it.
