VR T560: amp quality / upgrades

[jimmyjim]

Hi!

I will be getting a T560 soon and I would like to ask owners of one if they upgraded the amp they got from Souri? I want to decide if I get his amp or perhaps another one with better audio quality?
From reading here I understood that Souri does not sell you all his upgrades instantly but wants you to take you time with the standard kit and learn it first before investing in upgrades, so I guess I don't
have many options at the beginning. I plan on getting a meter (since I don't have such a big one, only a TC Electronics Clarity M) and I want to go directly from ma DA converter in the amp and do the RIAA
encoding digitally.

[PMST]

If you do the iRIAA coding digitally, you must map your head. These units not follow the standard RIAA curve, each head is different, i have mapped maybe 30 heads so far for people and all have variations in frequency response.

I use Ecler ePLA350 for my amps and happy with them but i know the Avantone CLA 200 is getting good feedback.

My chain is like this

Cutting:
Audio Player
Volume Knob
Cutter Amp

Playback:
Turntable
RIAA Preamp
Level Meter
Monitors

[jimmyjim]

Thanks for info on those two amps!

How would I map the frequency curve of the head? With a test record or by cutting certain test tones myself and then analysing a recording of it? If yes, wouldn't the pickup and the stylus skew the result a bit?