Nagra VPS or Tron Seven Ref phono stages?

...what about manley labs steelhead or lamm lp2?

These are something different.They do a lot of things right (tone, staging, swing, body, size, time differences...) but of course it depends on you what you expect and demand. The Steelhead is interesting, there is much worse out there. The Lamm LP2 is a unit you will only know how good it is when you know what others do wrong. Lamm offers that one in a - non promoted series for the fanatic low output MC owner - high gain version, 70dB without extra pricing instead of 58dB.... 'nuff said :-)

I haven't heard the Nagra, but I have heard the TRON. Anyway forget what I've heard. Thomas Woschnick (the TW Acustic turntable designer) uses a TRON Seven Reference in his own system. Apparently he wouldn't let GT take the TRON back to the UK after GT brought it to his home to listen to last year. Now I would trust TW's judgement.

My 2 cents.. My system consists of: Mcintosch C2300 Preamp, 2 MC2000 tube amps, 1 MC352, JBL 4345,s Modded Khorns (alk xtreme slope crossovers, crites tweeter, alk trachorn, JBL 2470 drivers,solid silver wire)Basis debut sig, Vaccum tablr, Graham Phantom11, Van den Hul colibri's Dynavector XV1S. I've owned Sutherland PHD, sold it after heard the Manley steelhead 11, bought that, then got my C2300 Mac, (actually liked the phono section better than the Manley)! Then I heard the the Tron 7 reference...HAD to have it and DID! Not lookin for anything else, soundstage is awesome in my system. I usee Telefunken ECC803's, and ECC801S....

Hi Tjnif,

That's interesting that you preferred the Mac phono to the Steelhead. I had a C2300 and Steelhead II in the same system and liked the Steelhead way more. It is substantially improved by tube rolling. But irrespective of what I rolled into the Mac, I felt it couldn't touch the Steelhead. Just goes to show, it's all system- and ear-dependent.

Well...I really went back and forth for some time... Tube rolling EVERY option possible ( yea...,I'm stupid that way) I settled for the C2300 w/ Telefuknen ECC803s tubes installed. The soundstage was remarkable to say the least! I must be honest here....the Tron w/ same tube configurations as i posted wasnt "that much" better, but enough "for me" to incorporate it. I actually wish I NEVER heard the Tron as I would be happy! Thats why I WON'T listewn to anything else! If I ever upgrade to the C500 or C1000 MAC tube preamp I would probably sell the Tron,..