artemis lab, phono preamp?

I recently inquired about this phono stage at a local dealer, he doesn't keep it in stock, claims there's no demand. I never see them around either, don't know if this means their overpriced or what.

A good friend of mine had the chance to audition both the PL-1 and the PH-1 and he preferred the PH-1 model. He also liked the Ayre P-5xe phono preamp very much and is now in the process of deciding between the PH-1 and P-5xe. Looks like he's leaning more towards the P-5xe.

I own the PH-1 and think it is excellent. I have no experience with the Pl-1.
I have owned ASR Exclusive, Wavestream, 47 labs cube and several others so have a good reference.
If I am not mistaken Galibier Design sells these (probably a good endorsement) and that might be a good place to go...Thom is a great guy and straight shooter.

I also owned the Artemis preamp and thought this excellent as well...they guy I sold it to loves it....IMO they make very good and good value gear.

I have the Artemis Labs Ph-1 phono stage and absolutely love it. It gives you about 52db of gain without the use of step up transformers which I think is great. I use a Benz wood bodied cartridge that has .9mv output and it is a great match. This phono stage has wonderful harmonic structures, wonderful micro and macro dynamics, and is very even balanced sounding across the entire frequency range. Not one area is highlighted. It produces music very naturally in a live acoustic event sense, not hi-fi in your face at all. I say this because I listen to live jazz, blues and symphonies 3-4 times a week on a regular basis, so I feel I have a handle on this. Another thing that I love is that you have an infinite number of variability for load adjustments by simply inserting whatever value load resistor you want into the back side of the unit. Build quality seems to be excellent as well. I have not heard the Pl-1 at all so I cannot comment. I went with the Ph-1 because it works excellent with my cartridge. If I decide to use lower output cartridges I can always add outboard stepups to match that particular cartridge. I absolutely love this phono stage and do not at all consider it overprice. If you have an opportunity to hear it, I think you'd love it.

Best regards,
Don