You might consider the Graham Slee loaner program, you can try any of his equipment at home for two weeks. No purchase at all required, you just pay the shipping round trip. I'm trying the Accession in a few weeks, as soon as it comes available from the next demo user.
Thx for that. The problem with any loaner or trial period is that the ideal way for me to do do this would be to audition 3-4 units from different manufacturers, break them in and listen to each for a while. Since I don't have the bucks to order that number of units, it really has limited value to try one as I really don't know what else is out there. Also, no manufacturer is going to give me that long a trial period. I have finally reached a point to where my system is very good. But as far as phono stages, the old axiom applies.... "you don't know what you don't know"
Right now I'm just going on lots of reading and reviews and audio guys that have lots of experience with phono and whose equipment might be commensurate with mine. At this point, I'm leaning toward the K & K, Herron and maybe a Vinyl Song LCR although I can hardly get any info on it. The guy offering the LCR is very experienced in audio and I do trust his opinion.
