@rauliruegas:
I didn't say that the entire thing was compressed - just the front/back soundstage.
I'm not sure what would be wrong with the phono preamp here - it's a very clean circuit, one 12AU7 and two 12AX7s per channel, and at the moment, all are vintage Telefunken. I've got it very low loaded and a decent amount of gain, so I don't think it's really the phono preamp (I mean, I guess it could be). If I had my druthers, I'd get a Herron VTPH-2A but well, that's probably not going to happen any time soon.
I do appreciate the suggestion on the at-art9xa. I hadn't really thought of that cart as a serious comparison but it's certainly something I will look into as well.
@larryi - thanks for the suggestion on the ART 1000. I'll look into it.
@dover - I'm curious what a top arm would be in the price range of the audiomods arm? I figured I would have go $5K or more for a better arm which wasn't in the cards (and still isn't).
@solypsa - I'm fairly confident the arm can handle pretty much anything you throw at it. While I don't know that it would handle an extremely low compliance heavy cart well, there are additional cartridge mounting plates as well as counter weight discs that you can swap or add so I suspect that even for the heaviest, lowest compliance carts, there's a solution. Whether that's going to produce the best sound possible out of the combo needs further examination, I guess.