Whats on your turntable tonight?

@grey9hound no hijack, we keep things mostly focused on music and discuss everything but always returning to our mutual love of music....no worries from my perspective....i also am of a fan of EAR as James and Eric run them, i agree glorious warm tube tone color without being syrup overdone. I have a Herron which is $3 k new but can be found a version back right at your price point. it ( so far for me and many others ) does not reward nos tube rolling. I stop short of calling it a giant killer but it is competitive into the $6 k range. it is no Lamm or ARC ref. It is taunt, lyrical and uncolored. image depth is quite good. My other tube phono is really 2 a Music Reference RM-4 head amp paired w single chassis Croft RIAA-RS, bit warmer presentation, more tube glow and does reward tube rolling, running 1960 rca clear tops , Mullards, and in the RM-4 some cryo Russian rockets.
how much gain do ya need ?enjoy the journey.
jim

Train - Drops of Jupiter ( server )

I run MM carts so gain should not be an issue. I have a Victor QLA-7 100v from Japan, that I use. I am using The JVC -Z-1S cartridge with Jico SAS Stylus. with Boron Cantiliver.
I also have a NOS Stanton 681EEE mkIII and an NOS ADC XLM Mkii and a Shure 95HE with brand new original HE stylus. ($165 for stylus) 
I have found that the JVC Z-1S sounds as good as the others , at least with the McIntosh MX150 Phono stage. That’s what i had been using. until now,..so I have not yet tried any of the other Carts on the Moon 110 LP V2, since I just got it yesterday. Anyone tried the Project Phono Box DS2 ?
It is coming next week . It is the one that uses two 12AX7s ?
Thanks for the replies

LIttle Feat - Sailin' Shoes

@grey9hound This is not a bad place to ask about or talk about gear.  If you search, you will find that this topic has been covered a lot.

Some suggestions for you...

At the lower end of your budget, the Parks Puffin is really quite good for the money and has tons of adjustments and Shannon is continually tweaking the firmware and adding features.  It's a tweaker's dream, but may put some off because it injects digital into your analog chain.

The Musical Fidelity Nova Phonomena can be found used towards the lower end of your range and is very quiet and neutral and has a lot of loading and gain settings.

The two phono stages I own that are near the top of your budget are the Manley Chinook and Pass Labs XP-15.  You should be able to find a Chinook under your budget, the XP-15 might stretch it a little.  

The Chinook is tube based and is a little more dynamic than the XP-15, but also a little noisier.  Which isn't to say that it's noisy, it's not and you won't hear it at all during playback and you can play around with tube rolling.  It only has two gain settings, so not a lot of flexibility there, but it should work with most cartridges.  Lots of loading settings.

The XP-15 is dead quiet, very neutral, and offers a lot of options for gain and loading settings.  

I have personal experience with all of these and still own all of them except the Nova Phonomena.  I had two at one time, so the fact that I no longer own them isn't due to lack of enjoyment, just that they were replaced by higher end units.