I'm not at all active in these forums, but it's miserably hot outside and I stumbled onto this. I have owned a VTPH-2 for nine years and am very happy with it. Keith is great to work with. My configuration may be of some use. I use Keith's interconnect, phono to pre-amp. Current tube configuration: 4 Mullard 12ax7's, JJ 12at7 all new, not NOS or vintage. The Mullards are the warmest of anything I've tried, and I've tried EI's Ruby's and others. That being said, the Mullards are not soft or syrupy, just a good match for the rest of my system. The JJ 12at7 is a great value for the money. I've tried fancy NOS Mullards and a cryo Gold Lion in the 12at7 slot and always go back to the JJ. Most notable is it's bass reproduction. Much tighter. My VTPH-2 sits on three original Stillpoints, two with points down, one with points up. The last tweak I've made, and one that really stabilized the presentation was a rack mod. I have a VPI rack, sand filled. The phono stage sat on a 1" thick maple shelf that rested on the second rack, held down by gravity with two VPI bricks resting on the shelf. Seemed less than state of the art given all the attention racks are getting these days. So, I cut eight slots in the shelf and looped metal hose clamps through them, looping them them around the racks front to back struts. I put a strip of fo.Q tape between the shelf and the rack bars and then tightened down the hose clamps, hard, squeezing the shelf down onto the rack/fo.Q tape. Imaging went from acceptable to nearly rock solid. That was confirmed when I had some guys over to play pool, which I do about once a month. I had to run them out at 2:00 AM, they were still making requests. That had never happened before. Cartridge/tonearm/TT Lyra Delos, ET II ,VPI TNT jr. Oh yeah, I use Herbie's tube dampers too.
Herron VTPH-2
So I recently performed some tweaks on my analog system such as cartridge alignment, VTA, and adding some Rega white belts to my Rega P7 TT and all of these made slight improvements. However what really made me hear the difference was my Herron VTPH-2 phono stage, hence why I made the tweaks. It has about one month on it and it has slowly opened up to now where the music is transparently intimate especially with good recordings. What I love about this phono stage is that it allows me to hear the music differently, allowing subtle notes in the background that I have heard before become a little more alive. So I am not hearing new things but hearing them differently for the better as well as the main instrumentation. So high ratings go to Keith and this phono stage especially at the price point.