Getting a new table what pre-amp to get

12-07-11: Audiofeil
>>12-06-11: Rccc
Buy the best table/tonearm you can afford and upgrade the cartridge later....
Buy as much pre as you can afford as well. Its importance equals, perhaps surpasses, the table/tonearm.

I don't have as much turntable rig experience as Audiofeil, but I agree based on my personal experience. After 3 years living with a Cambridge 640A phono stage, I moved up to the Jolida JD-9A. For just $200 more, I'm getting an entirely different level of musical satisfaction--fuller, smoother, warmer, lusher, yet with more clarity and better dynamics.

Three things this unit bring to the table are a big boy's power supply (and a socket for aftermarket power cords), a wide range of gain, resistance, and capacitance settings, and a tube-buffered output stage. Whatever your cartridge is now or in the future, it has a setting to optimize it for the rest of your system.

Go for your Clearaudio TT or similar performance level (as opposed to something under $500), but it'd be a shame to strangle the signal through a single-setting wall-wart phono stage when the JD-9A is available for so little more money, and future proofs your rig for cartridge upgrades.

12-11-11: Billybob7088
What about a plug in board for my Creek? Anyone have experience with one?

Excellent idea. Creek has always been committed to the LP market even when it wasn't fashionable in the mid-'90s. I hadn't noticed you had a Creek integrated in your original post. You'll get the most for your money with the plug-in board because you're only paying for the phono preamp parts, not the power supply or casework. It'll also save you a set of interconnects and you know it'll be an ideal impedance and output match with your amp.

I've heard Creek phono and integrated amp rigs and they sound very nice.