Anyone have experience with the PH-1000 and tube stage

sounds like you need to find a solution/location/loose on top/pull out shelf/lazy susan, to make access to the back of your unit less of a PITA.

Thanks both.  No inclination to retire my Chinook.  Alternatives to PH1000/1012 combo there are 2 I am considering : Allnic 7000V and the much less expensive Lab12 Melto2.   Anybody have one of these?  

Lewn

I believe I have a solution.  I ordered a resistor switch box which will cover the loads I need for my 4 cartridges, without having to open the Chinook.  But the really  low output MC require the highest gain on the SE which is 65 dB.  If I use an sut I would have to go down to 45 or 50 - requires opening the box.  My Soundsmiths don’t like the SUT.  At 65 dB I get some hiss (not terrible) from the Chinook (tubes are being driven hard).  Having done more research on the Steelhead I now think it might be the best fit for me.  It’s way different inside than the Chinook and a lot quieter.  I’d that your experience?  How “tubey” is it?  The Chinook is a little warm but not big lush tubes.  There’s a FET stage before the tubes.  I don’t care about the line stage so I guess I don’t need the mods you did.  Thoughts?

My guess is that the Steelhead uses a hybrid cascode at its phono inputs with the FET at the bottom and 6922 at the top. That’s one way to get a lot of gain. The RIAA filtering would follow that gain stage, but I don’t know how they (apparently) employ autoformers in the MC pathway. Like I said, the schematic is unavailable. As to the Chinook, have you removed the cover in order to examine the output coupling caps? And are they 30uF in value? If yes, then I’d guess the output stage of the phono only Chinook is like that of the Steelhead phono stage. After all, the Steelhead came first, and I suspect the Chinook was their effort to produce a lower cost phono only version. 

The caps are 30 uF in the Chinook. But no FETs or autotreansformers like in the STeelhead.t’s a pure tube gain unit.  I have the SE version that puts out up to 65 dB gain.  It’s somewhat noisy at that output with low output MC - even with my 86 dB speakers.  

After doing a lot of research I think the Steelhead is the bet fit for me.  What tubes do you use?  It comes with all EH tubes.