New Budget phono from Parasound

U call 1495 budget??? That said I have a vendetta and so being from the same designer I can imagine it will be good

I just upgraded my JC3 to a JC3+.  The 3+ is a lot better than the 3, which is amazing considering how great the 3 sounds.  
I won't be buying a Jr but I think it's great that they are making a more affordable version.  They even added the variable cart loading feature of the 3+ on the Jr.  That's a pretty nice feature for a $1500 unit.  Are there any other companies offering this much quality for $1.5K?  
Parasound already offers some true budget phono preamps that are really good.    

It seems to me that the better deal would be the Parasound Halo integrated amp. For a grand more, you get a Stereophile Class A component (most of the other Class A Integrateds are thousands more), a highly rated MM/MC phono stage (that is probably pretty close in performance to the standalone unit under discussion), a high current monster amp section making 160/240 wpc into 8/4 ohms, analog bass management circuitry including high and low pass filters and front panel controls, a built-in DAC that accepts input from USB, coax, and Toslink, that decodes PCM up to 32-bit/384Khz, plus DSD. Actually, the DAC has so much range it makes my head spin. 

That's a lot for an extra $1K, plus it replaces up to 4 standalone components--phono pre, line stage, amp, and DAC (plus bass mgmt and a headphone amp and output jack).

Anyone compared Parasound phono to Sutherland ? He makes $995 phono, it is supposed to be very good. Then he offers $1400 and $2200 models and further up.