Eastern Electric minimax phono vs. Hagerman Cornet

Thanks for the input! I am really dead set on the Hagerman or the minimax, those are the two! I'm hoping to hear from someone who has actually owned, or at the very least heard both..... Anything to give me that 'push' in either direction.... Heard nothing but good about both preamps.

I've never heard the Hagerman (I own the MiniMax)but they appear to have a similar layout and one could probably be very happy with either.

If you're planning on using a DL103 cart, the stock loading on the MC side of the MiniMax (47 ohm or 100 ohm)may not be sufficient.

I went from a Vendetta to a Minimax and love it. I also tried an ARC 5 and felt it was very similar to the Vendetta, but the Minimax was superior to both, IMO. In the Stereophile review, Fremer says the Minimax is great fun to listen to, and I would say that is correct. It does all the audiophile things like imaging and detail very well, but it is also very dynamic and just plain FUN. I am using it with a Skala, into ARC Ref gear, and it works great in this context. Plenty of gain, very quiet, fairly quick warm up, and it looks great as well.

I'm fairly certain I will be selling on my cinemags and seduction to make room for the minimax. Someone was saying that they felt the seduction was so close in performance to the mm that it wouldn't really be an upgrade per se, but I like the convenience of one chassis and the 100ohm loading option ( which btw is considered optimal for the dl103, there is a thread on the subject here somewhere) so maybe I should be looking for folks that have compared the minimax and seduction!!!