For the money—I bought mine used for $1250—I have only good things to say about the P-5xe. It doesn't have the bass slam and dynamic authority of my other standalone phono stage (PBN Audio Olympia P)—which also has XLR inputs and outputs—but then it retails at less than a quarter of the price of the PBN. It's early days yet, but so far, I like it as much as the built-in phono stage in a recently acquired Esoteric C-03X. In the interests of full disclosure, I've never used an MC cartridge with any of my analogue set-ups. I've kind of "standardized" on the venerable Grace F9, but with upgraded stylus assemblies from Sound Smith.
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