Any Herron VTPH-2 Phono Stage Owners out there?

I've posted before about the Herron VTPH-2 but will chime in again with nothing but praise. Thoughtfully designed, well-made, beautiful sounding and comes with great support from Keith. When I went to a separate phonostage my first choice was solid state--a Whest PS30R. Nice unit for sure but when I decided I wanted to try a tube unit I did some research and thought I'd give the Herron a go. Spoke to Keith several times and was really blown away by his knowledge, demeanor and commitment to my audio quest. I ran the Herron against the Whest and it was no contest--a far more musical, effortless and tonally correct presentation. Is it the best phonostage out there? Who knows, everything is system dependent. But for my listening tastes and in my system the Herron is incredibly satisfying. I've owned it for something like five years and have never thought about replacing it and probably never will, even if I somehow had lots of found money to dump into my system--I'd spend it elsewhere. The best advice I can give to anyone considering the VTPH-2 is to give Keith a call and talk to him about what you are trying to achieve. If he thinks the VTPH-2 will get you there he will say so. If not, he will say that as well. As always, trying a component in your system is the only/best way to know if it is the right product. Good luck!

Think about what Keith Herron did in my case: He took a used pre-amp that was discontinued ten years ago and reengineered it to meet my specific and unusual needs. Knowing I would want as much headroom as his design was capable of, and that I would forfeit some un-needed gain to get it, he replaced two of the stock phono amp's 12AX7 tubes with 12AT7's, listened to the amp, substituted some parts to maximize it's sound quality, burned in the amp, and sent along the unused 12AX7's incase I wanted to try the amp with them installed. All for $1225 shipped! He then emailed to verify that the PH-1mm had arrived safely!! I can't imagine anyone else going to all that trouble for what is chump change---his time is surely worth far more than the hours he put into my amp. I made sure to go to his room at last weekends T.H.E. Show in Irvine (wherein he was getting great sound, one of the couple of best systems I heard all weekend), and he couldn't have been nicer. He talked about tube swapping, the sound of passive parts, etc., and I'm telling you he is a happy, non-egocentric, down-to-earth guy. Maybe it's being from and in the Midwest, 'cause another guy I spent some time talking with was a very similar kinda guy---Bill Johnson.

Thanks everybody - I will give Keith a call when my funds increase a bit. $3600 is still quite the investment. Not sure if there are any demos or deals going on any units, but am pretty much sold by the Herron if it will work in my system. Thanks for all the advice!

Getting back to the OP question, I think it depends on the signature of the individual components and the component matching.

Your integrated amp has an input of 100k ohms. That is sufficiently high to allow upstream components to drive it without problems. OTOH, some solid state components might have a low input impedance which could present problems for some high output impedance tube equipment.

I have to echo the other comments about the Herron phono stage as well as Keith Herron. I have had my VTPH-2 for just over a year, and it is fantastic. Keith Herron provides great support and customer service. This product is, in my opinion, an outstanding value. Rest of my system: VPI Scoutmaster/Soundsmith Paua, Herron VTPH-2, Musical Fidelity NuVista 800, MF TriVista DAC, MF A3.2 CDP, Wilson Audio Sashas, Transparent Reference cables and power.