What's A Good Upgrade From A Manley Steelhead?

@rooze: Are you familiar with the gear tastes and/or reviews of the late Art Dudley? His hi-fi priorities were first full-bodied tonal color and saturation, followed closely by "forward rhythmic propulsion"---the timing characteristics of hi-fi gear, a subject little discussed in hi-fi reviews (Herb Reichert being one exception).

Art preferred the pre-amps and power amps of Shindo Laboratories above all others (though in his review of the EAR-Yoshindo 912 he stated it provided sound competitive with his Shindo). I don’t believe Shindo offers a separate phono stage, but you can do what some hard-core 1950’s-60’s audiophiles did---use only the phono stage of a full-function pre-amp (phono and line stages), sending the RIAA signal available at the tape out jacks of a Shindo (or any other full-function pre-amp for that matter) to your own line stage. Who knows,. you might like the Shindo line stage as well!

@rooze: Congratulations on having such a good system that you feel a need for an upgrade from your Steelhead phono pre-amp. We should all be so fortunate!

At the risk of appearing condescending (I hate that), may I suggest that a "deeper dive" into the music you love might provide a more meaningful improvement to your musical life than a "mere" component upgrade (if such is even a possibility) would? But then I consider musical enjoyment and appreciation the goal of all hi-fi endeavors. If I seem out of line, I apologize in advance.

In the past six or seven years I have added a great number of recordings to my music library (the term I prefer to collection), which has greatly advanced my ambition to absorb as much music as I can before my inevitable (and presumably impending) demise. Does your Steelhead provide a better reproduction of the music contained in your LP’s than does my Herron? Sure, if reports are to be believed (I’ve never heard the Steelhead). But it can only reproduce the music contained in your LP library. It is my opinion that the price of one’s hi-fi system should be kept in proportion to the amount of $ one has invested in his or hers music library. Not everyone agrees with that philosophy.