Elrod-
I've been running a Rogue Audio Magnum 99 with their onboard tubed phono stage for about six years now and I love it. Early on I rolled the stock tubes out to NOS Sylvania 6SN7s in the line and RCA Clear Top 12AU7s in the phono. While perhaps not whisper quiet, it's plenty quiet enough (I have to be much less than a foot away to hear anything) and it plays, IMO, well along the lines of what you said were your preferences. In the last few years I've auditioned three phono preamps in the $2000-25000 range and not kept any of them, ultimately preferring the sound of what I gotten to with the onboard. New with stock tubes should come in at your budget, but you should be able to find one used well under your budget with room to spare for rolling out the stock tubes. I've not heard the RP-5 to make a comparison, but if you were to call the super helpful folks at Rogue I'm sure they can give you their opinion on the two relative to each other. Happy hunting.
I've been running a Rogue Audio Magnum 99 with their onboard tubed phono stage for about six years now and I love it. Early on I rolled the stock tubes out to NOS Sylvania 6SN7s in the line and RCA Clear Top 12AU7s in the phono. While perhaps not whisper quiet, it's plenty quiet enough (I have to be much less than a foot away to hear anything) and it plays, IMO, well along the lines of what you said were your preferences. In the last few years I've auditioned three phono preamps in the $2000-25000 range and not kept any of them, ultimately preferring the sound of what I gotten to with the onboard. New with stock tubes should come in at your budget, but you should be able to find one used well under your budget with room to spare for rolling out the stock tubes. I've not heard the RP-5 to make a comparison, but if you were to call the super helpful folks at Rogue I'm sure they can give you their opinion on the two relative to each other. Happy hunting.