Does EAR324 phono stage sound like tubes ?

I came across this thread because I have been interested in the EAR 324 for use with a myriad of vintage MM and MI cartridges that I want to audition. The front panel controls for capacitance and resistive loading would be very useful in that regard. In reviewing published reviews of the 324, I came across two "disturbing" comments: (1) John Atkinson measured rather poor overload characteristics for the inputs at frequencies below 100Hz (distortion went sky high at inputs above 5mV, which would easily be reached by any MM cartridge), and he suggested that an MM cartridge might well overload the stage and induce such distortion, and (2) after praising his demo unit, Ken Kessler let it drop at the end of his review that he thought the 324 was a tad "grainy". Have any of you guys experienced either phenomenon, or do you know whether or how TdP addressed the overload "problem"? Thanks.

By the way, a 7DJ8 is naught but a 6DJ8/6922 with a different filament voltage requirement (7V instead of 6V), as far as I know.

Thanks, guys, for your thoughtful responses. I guess another one bites the dust, since I was interested in the 324 only for the purpose of running it with MM and MI cartridges and was salivating at all those front panel choice of capacitance and load resistance. It is very odd to read that a device that uses BOTH input and output transformer coupling could possibly sound "grainy". I would have thought that the output transformer, in particular, would ameliorate any transistor-like coloration. (At least in my mind, "grainy" = transistor.) Plus, I would have thought that TdP was incapable of designing anything that sounded grainy. Because of my particular MM and MI wants, the 88PB would not be a good choice, either.

Good points, Dan. Kessler did reveal the identity of his comparator phono stage, but I cannot now recall what that was. Possibly the Linn Linto. Also, Nolitan appeared to agree that the 324 could sound grainy. I use OTL tube amps and ESL speakers, probably a good match for the 324, which would feed into the linestage section of my Atma-sphere MP1 preamp, in balanced mode.

I just wonder why it would sound "grainy" at all. Of course, that word may mean different things to each one of us, but it seems to me that transistor audio has evolved beyond the point where it should ever sound grainy. And I am a confirmed tube-aholic, nevertheless, for other reasons.

That's OK, Dan. I take your point. Mine are Sound Lab M1s, but I love Quads, too.