By cheerfully weird happenstance, I received two world-class phono preamplifiers, pretty much right on top of each other.
The first to arrive was the Arion phonostage ($6,395) from Tim Stinson of Luminous Audio. Tim Stinson was beside himself over this phono pre — he and his partner Mike Bettinger of Bettinger Audio Designh ave been working on this thing for well over a year now — and the final product was “beyond all expectations”. Heady stuff.