Phono stages: Hagerman and Sun Valley 1616 possible giant killers

I highly recommend deHavilland

My friend bought two deHavilland tube pieces, brought them here, he is very familiar with my equipment/system sound. We love both of them here and at his house playing thru my old JSE Infinite Slope Model II's.

he ordered and waited for this Preamp

http://www.dehavillandhifi.com/UltraVerve-Preamplifier.htm

he found and bought a vintage dehavilland Cornet2 Tube Phono. The current tube phono is different, his had a rectifier tube, the current one does not.

I would expect it and other of her products to sound terrific.

OP, Others,

Sorry I confused these two brands, I was trying to share my enthusiasm, and still do, for both

Kara deHavilland talked for a long time with my friend, he agreed to wait until she could get the specific transformer she wanted to use, she agreed and built the tube preamp for my friend in 2023.

http://www.dehavillandhifi.com/UltraVerve-Preamplifier.htm

and I confused his vintage Hagerman Cornet2

(no 2nd ’O’, a tube phono kit built by former owner) as a deHavilland, somehow I thought he got both pieces from Kara.

factory assembled Hagerman Cornet Tube Phono, MM

Both tube, both sound wonderful in my and his system. He has Hagerman Tube Phono to deHavilland Tube Preamp to big McIntosh SS amp with monster meters to JSE Infinite Slope Model II’s that he restored. Here we listened via my Tube Cayin amp, comparing favorably to my McIntosh MX110z Tube Tuner Preamp’s MM Phono, using my Fidelity Research FRT-4 SUT to hear my MC

OP is mentioning Hagerman's TRUMPET Tube MM/MC Phono, the Trumpet adds MC capability, otherwise the innards/RIAA is identical to the Cornet MM Phono.

Hagerman Trumpet Tube Phono MM and MC

so sorry to derail this to confusion

OP,

"Do you think the Hagerman competes with phono stages in the 3-5 K price range?"

Absolutely: "good enough, DONE"

Speaker/Amp/Preamp/Sources: in that order I keep rejecting ... until I achieve ’involving, dynamic, revealing yet relaxed’.

My MX110z’s phono, my friend’s Hagerman Phono, I think either are end game/stop looking, if it breaks just get another one: thus they are equal to anything at any price even though I haven’t heard the other choices.

Done for Now: If my good enough (had to have remote volume and sound as good as my prior Fisher 80az tube mono blocks), Cayin A88T amp broke, it would be a total ’now what?’ research situation (limited by my need for 16 ohm taps).

Done. If my Sony xa5400es sacd player died, my MX110z tube tuner preamp died, my TT81 died; my Acos Lustre GST-801 tonearm died, my X2000R Reel to Reel; my Mitsubishi LT5V Vertical TT or Luxman SQ-N150 Integrated Amp died: I would search for money not bother with any research, just gather $, whatever it cost to get another one.

Only scarcity would force me to research, luckily, age 76, I have the patience and alternate equipment to keep listening while searching/waiting.

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My friend may one day want to try a low output MC cartridge, and I imagine he, like me, would use a SUT so he can keep his ’done’ Hagerman Cornet2 MM Tube Phono stage. He could get the Hagerman Trumpet MM/MC discussed here, expect very similar sound,

but he has an early Cornet 2 Kit and it has a rectifier tube. seller sent him a variety of good but used tubes, including 3 different rectifier tubes. We were both quite surprised how much difference the rectifier tubes made. I never experienced that with my Fisher 80az 5V4 rectifier tubes which I checked twice a year and renewed a few times over the nearly 50 years I used them before selling them to Steve at VAS. That's how you know for sure that tubes last a long long time.