So a few thoughts on this one.Is analog to digital conversion better i n Katalyst than pre-Katalyst? I ask because I recently found the internal ADC of my Kii3 speakers superior to that of my pre-Katalyst Akurate DSM and I am about to replace my Linto for a PS Audio Stellar whose XLR outputs will deliver analog signal to the Kiis. But if Katalyst is better I might hang on to my Linto. As the Kiis do DSP I am not in the choice between analog or digital but the discovery that the now old AD conversion was limiting my musical experience was a big surprise.
For streaming and cds the digital output is coaxial to the Kiis and that is excellent.
I also noted that What Hifi was happy with everything about the Klimax Organik DS except the phono input quality.
- I have only owned Katalyst based Linn ADC/DAC in my LP12 and SDSM. These are essentially AKM DACs and Linn worked with AKM to tweak them for their use case. Also don't forget that part of and ADC/DAC is the analogue stages. Personally, I feel Katalyst easier betters any other DACs I have owned.
- Organik is a very different beast and is based on custom circuitry and FPGAs or field programable gate array's. Two of the major players who have been using FPGA would be Chord and PS Audio. The cool thing about FPGAs is they are programmable in such a way you can have one core DAC have a very different sound based on a software update.
Of course you could do exactly what you propose - get the PS Audio Stellar phono amp, especially if you want to take the cartdrige level signal and bring it up to line level in the analog domain. Then convert to digital on the way in to Kiis
Either way you wil result inl a fine system. And, if you make the wrong choice, you can always sell of the components you do not like and try again. Right now I am very happy with my Katalyst based system and look forward to a day when Linn offers the Organik upgrade for my kit.