Phono Preamp price range $2000-$4000

Solid state? Look into something by Avid, or a Musical Fidelity kW if you can track one of those down.

I agree with Chayro that the Linn Linto is a very good solid state unit. I find it lively and engaging in a way that is not that common with a lot of solid state gear. The loading is fixed at a value that works well with a lot of different cartridges, so I would not be that particularly concerned about that aspect of the design. However, if one does have a cartridge that sounds excessively sibilant and bright, and if one hopes to tame this behavior by additional loading (meaning a LOWER value of resistance in parallel) perhaps something else should be selected.

I like the top end Naim phonostage for solid state as well. This is also a lively sounding unit. My only concern with the Naim is that a friend of mine had problems with static buildup somewhere in the analogue front end that would cause an occasional loud pop; for some reason this only happened when using the Naim phonostage and it required rebooting the Naim stage which would shut down from the pop (grounding the turntable bearing and arm did not cure this problem).

Thank you all for suggestions, i will look to those units very well. Small concern, are most people buy tubes or solid state phono ?

And any opinion for Conrad Johnson TEA2 ?

Tubes in well designed phono stage will last for a LONG time. I've had the same tubes in my Herron VTPH-1 for 15 years.

SS or tubes? Most people buy what sounds good to them.

Tubes v. solid state will come down to personal preference and system synergy.

Especially with LOMC carts, you will want to be attentive to a tube phono stage's noise floor. But many tube phonos are nice and quiet (the Chinook for example). I agree that for a phono stage tube life will not be a real concern, due to the signal sizes involved.

Most of the solid stage vs. tube trade-offs apply for phono stages. But there is also the caveat that some tube gear can sound quite similar to solid state and vice versa.

Happy hunting.