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I had read about the 540p a fair bit before I decided to make a phono stage from board level instead and ended up making and modding 2 diy cnc phono stages. My search ended after building those although I'm sure there's plenty of improvement that could be made I've found my level for the time being.
I've been running the AT VM95SH for a year on my recording rig and that seems to be about my level atm.
Had a look at the reviews for the IQ3 but couldn't find a description of the stylus cut. At that price it must be microline or similar?
Airhead-
they call it an an type 2, which appears to be a vdh type 1, which is confusing as all fuck.
it is really good. it is marginally better that the omp40 with the fg2 (i think), but seems to track a lot better. probably just a better match to the tonearm. id does like to see 150-200pf, though, which can be a pain in the jocks, depending on your phono stage.
the arkless, is excellent. surprised me at how good it was. i bought it for fuck all on a whim, from a bloke that said it was damaged and got him to send it to arkless, who said the bloke was just using adc power supply, instead of ac - result!
BRM
The Technics is staying. I have an Audio Note IQ3 and an arkless turbo phono stage (an EE on a hifi forum modifies cambridge audio 540p phono stages) and it is the best i have had. not sure where i'd go from here, without spending big on mc carts and suts.
I only listen to spotify through a chromecast, so the digistal side of things would just be swapping dacs about. I have a load of music on a hard drive, but cannot be fucked with the sorting.