Quote Originally Posted by Bigman80 View Post
It's only my opinion but when we first put the phonostage together, the cheap Chinese Transformer buzzed like hell. It was so bad I could actually hear it the back ground. We mounted it on a piece of absorbance board and things massively improved. The noise in the background got a lot better. I then put 3 damper rings on each valve and again, everything just sounded a lot cleaner. Resolution improved. I'm not suggesting that in well designed units, they will have the exact same impact but in my DIY phonostage, they certainly have contributed to a very clean and hi resolution sound.
I think you should follow Firebottle's idea, string the transformer/valve amplifier/pcb to the ceiling