Natural, musical, dynamic phono preamp 700 used

Peace to you too Einstein,maybe look into some reading comprehension classes when youre done shopping. I'm hardly "over the top" or overly " defensive" of Chinese products, my issue is with your elitist attitude. I would venture a guess that a very large group of people on this site own at least one component manufactured in the far east, and were just made aware (by you) that they merely posess "ebay hi-fi". Way to make friends,jerk.

Haha, ok already Wino, we get it, you support the Ebay and Taiwan "hifi" underdogs - well they're all yours, bon appetit. Sorry your feelings are obviously hurt but you are going to have to accept that not everyone shares the same sentiment when it comes to rolling the dice on some obscure Taiwan Ebay audio equipment. Some of us, like myself, would much rather try equipment with a little more of an established and trusted reputation within our small hi end audio circles. But that's ok, because at the end of the day, its just hifi....so,take a big breath and relax everything is going to be ok, really. People buy a lot of things from a variety of places and I could care less what audio gear you or anyone else in this world buys - whether good or bad. You are the name caller here and the aggressor pressing this fantasy "elitist" issue from atop your tiny little digital soapbox, not me.

Consider this o mighty man of the vineyard, some of us have been hobbyists long enough to possible have good reason to steer clear of relatively unknown inexpensive Chinese/Taiwan made so called high end audio, that idea ever cross your fermented mind? Then there are those, no doubt having much less experience who simply would not understand why others may have adopted this train of thought. In the end, after you've sold all of your current USA, European and Japanese mfg. audio gear (which is clearly only suited for the elitist, which you are not!) and purchase all the new Ebay Taiwan/Chinese hifi you can get your little "Buy it now" hands on, maybe you would be so kind as to lead the rest of us unknowing little audiophile souls down the righteous path of true hi fidelity salvation! In closing, I say peace to you Vintner and thanks for engaging in this delightful, entertaining and informative commentary, its been fun.
(Disclaimer: No cheap Ebay Taiwan hifi audio equipment has been harmed in any capacity during the course of this deliberation.)

Really though, you might want to take it a little easy, after all its only hifi.

Wow, just wow. Does your mommy know your on the computer this late? I'll just stand by my prior post, invest some time in reading comprehension. Bye.

This is a good topic and one that am very interested in. Let's get back to the subject of $500-$700 phono stages.

Based on what I posted above, would a JD9, GCPH or something else be a better choice? I'd like to have variable gain control but don't want to buy the wrong stage just to get that feature.

I'm up for mods later on but want it to sound good out of the box. Is the stock GCPH that bad?

Another one that may be worthy of consideration is the Musical Surroundings Phonomena Nova. Runs on batteries, charges with AC. New @ $1K, would be right in your sweet spot used. I have one and like it, but don't have much experience with other phono stages so can't comment too much on how it rates against the others suggested.
I use it with a Denon DL-103r, and it has DIP switches for Cap, Resistance, and Gain which made a huge difference with the LOMC Denon.

Made in the USA (California) which may or may not matter to you, it does matter to me.