I have a Ref. No. 32 with a built-in phono stage. Mine has given me no problems whatsoever. It has worked silently and flawlessly for the past three years. Even when there has been lightning-induced power surges and outages, the unit comes back on and remembers all of its complex settings.
I should say that I am replacing mine with a tube linestage that sounds better to me, though I will be giving up some of the incredible flexibility and convenience of the ML remote control (the tube unit has a rather basic remote control). But, I still think the ML is quite good sounding, it just does not have the incredible "breath of life" and you-are-there quality of the tube unit -- the Emotive Audio Epifania. Still, incredible as this may sound, the ML is a lot cheaper than the Epifania.
I should say that I am replacing mine with a tube linestage that sounds better to me, though I will be giving up some of the incredible flexibility and convenience of the ML remote control (the tube unit has a rather basic remote control). But, I still think the ML is quite good sounding, it just does not have the incredible "breath of life" and you-are-there quality of the tube unit -- the Emotive Audio Epifania. Still, incredible as this may sound, the ML is a lot cheaper than the Epifania.