Help me choose a phono pre

I ordered a Gold Note to stay below $1000 at the recommendations of Ryan at TMR. But it was stuck in Italy so I bought a used Rega Aria MK 3 for the same price and couldn’t be happier.  Great match to Planar 8 and Apheta 3 cartridge.

Hey guys,

thank you so much for your inputs. I did some research after reading all the comments and sort of settled on the MM Pro by Mr Fiddler.  However, he’s on vacation for a week and will be placing the order once he’s back. In the meanwhile, I stumbled upon this video on YouTube by pearl acoustics, who talked very highly of the Fosi Box X5. Since I had the time, figured I’d order one off Amazon and see how it works.  Strange option but given its price, I have little to lose. I can always return it. It’s arriving today and will post my impressions in a day or two. 
 

Just so you know, I had narrowed it down to the Sutherland Kc vibe,  Mm Pro and Darlington labs. I’m sort of excited to try the Fosi. Let’s see!

Hey guys,

I'm at a loss of words for how good the Fosi sounds. The soundstage, imaging, details.. it’s almost like it has breathed a new life into my records. 
 

But while I’m super impressed, this is also my first experience with a phono preamp. Makes me wonder how much better the likes of Sutherland, Darlington and Michael Fiddler be.. 

im really confused. I feel like I complicated matters by ordering the Fosi. What would you do?

If The Fosi sounds so good to you then keep it. That said the only way you will know if it offers equal to, or more or less SQ, functionality, etc . than the others you identified is to try one or more of them yourself. Time to make your own decision.

@facten Thank you! It was a brief listening session and sounded really really good. For background, I have a 15 month old, so don't get much time to listen in the first place. Its gonna be hard to spend hours of fiddling around with the setup and/r run extensive A/B tests.  I'm going to spend a few more hours with the Fosi across diff albums and make a call.

One other question regarding placement of the gear (TT, Phono and Power, etc).  What i see on a lot of forums is that the TT and Phono Pre Amp must be on a different rack away from speaker, amplifer, etc.  But at the same time, it says the interconnect must not be too long.  So what is the ideal placement if space and cables were not a constraint?   I'm thinking of getting a record storage and can potentially move the TT and Phono Preamp to it.. right now I have everything on one rack between my 2 speakers..