Having owned a Placette, we know there's no going back. It wasn't until I heard the Atma-Sphere MP-1 preamp that I made a switch. In hindsight, it's the phono preamp in the MP-1 that's the king. If Atma-Sphere built a stand alone phono preamp, I might still have the Placette.The phono section of the MP-1 is designed to work with a line section. If you have a high output cartridge it could drive a power amp to clipping, but no with LOMCs. The thing is, the interconnect cable is a huge variable with passives, and the line section of the MP-1 can tame interconnect cables quite well.
IOW, the MP-1 is intended as a stand-alone phono reproducer, although it does have auxiliary inputs.