Herron VTPH-2A vs ModWright PH 9.0

Forgot to say, the Modwright phono 9.0 replaced an Aesthetix Rhea that I've been using for the past 10 years.  The Rhea was great and delivered the "breath of life" that makes you feel you are listening to real human beings making music.  It had a midrange to die for, and a bit like the Herron, felt a bit bigger than life.  The Modwright is less fullsome in the midrange (not at all lean), but I think true-er to the actual recording.  HTH.

I own the Modwright, and have heard the Herron, but not side by side.  I was leaning towards purchasing the Herron, but after discussions with beta-testers of Dan's PH9.0, I changed my mind.  I've had it now for almost a year.  It's a hard thing to describe, since it's quite neutral IMHO.  My impression of the Herron in my friend's system is that it's a bit more holographic, and a little bigger than life.  It is a joy to listen to.  Could be his system though. 

In my system, the Modwright just gets out of the way and doesn't call attention to itself.  Yet when I play complex orchestral music, it's all there.  I can follow the individual lines of different instruments and the voices of choral groups do not all blend into a hodge-podge.  It's a group of people singing together and I feel their synchrony, or lack thereof as it may be.  Deep bass, clear highs, all there without obtruding.  It's just music!

For what it's worth, my cartridges are the Audio Technica ART-9, an Ortofon mono MM, and a Dynavector DV20xl.  They all seem to find their voices with the Modwright, and come through with their own character.  The Modwright is just one of those quietly competent things that you hardly realize is working so well until you try something else.  Strong recommendation.

Your system seems to be well thought-out.  I do think you'd find improvement with either of these phono stages.  My Modwright does not have the upgraded transformer and slightly revised circuitry of the 9.0x.  I have heard from others that the new sut represents a pretty significant upgrade. 

FWIW, I actually run two tables through my Modwright, one (monaural) connected to the MM inputs and another connected to the MC inputs.  I can switch between them from the front panel without having to fiddle with patch cords.  I run mostly unbalanced, although for headphone listening, I can connect via balanced XLR to my headphone amp.  It's pretty versatile.  

My Aesthetix Rhea supported three decks, and a remote control for setting loading on the fly.  It was quiet and lovely with good NOS tubes, but tended to get noisier over time.  It had 10 tubes, so re-tubing it was an expensive proposition. 

The Modwright is dead quiet, and it's gain tubes provide a wide un-hyped frequency range.  It seems pretty darned neutral to me, which makes it hard to talk about what it is doing or not doing to help the music.