built-in phono stages -- good idea?


It seems to me that the best location for a phono stage is at the tone arm wire end -- in the turntable. My thoughts:

This would bring the following benefits to its performance:
Elimination of the sensitive and susceptible phono cable
Reduction of the need for a balanced phono stage
Reduction of noise without the need for balanced design -- half of the battle is won already.

Both are significant advantages, I think. But this puts some limitations on the design of the phono stage:
Needs to be very compact solid state design, probably SMD. Access to loading options and mc/mm switching need to be thought out and accessible from rear or underneath. Again, both doable.


Why don’t we see this more often? Your thoughts?


Herman
gera
The main problem with this is you are talking about the most difficult to design component in all of high end audio. The phono stage has to take the weakest signal in all of audio, amplify it by the most gain in all of audio, and equalize it with the wildest and yet most precise EQ in all of audio. Any one of these is a monster challenge in and of itself. The phono stage has to handle all three!

The more you look into what goes into a good phono stage- and turntable- the more you start to appreciate why they aren't very often combined into one. Noise rejection and quality power supplies are critical. Turntables have a motor, which you notice they always put as far away from the cartridge and arm as possible. Because of the noise. So now you would add an additional power supply and phono circuit in there, and have to shield all that from the motor as well.

Power and shielding are way easier (read, can be done more cost-effectively) inside a pre-amp or integrated amp. 

The main market for tables with built-in phono stages is entry level, because there you have people looking for plug and play, and this makes it simple. 
Emt tables are built in. I think Walker Audio tables  almost do this  by connecting the arm wire directly to the phono amp. It’s just not convenient enough to be viable option. Even the best design isn’t necessarily easy to market.  
The power supply would be external of course. Only low voltage in the turntable + shield box on the actual compact phono stage.

I don't know... it seems like a good idea to have the amplification as close as possible to the delicate signal source, to reduce the amount of noise being picked up. It is now possible to have compact, high performance phono pre amps thanks to SMD.and good opamps. Just seems logical so I must be missing something ???
The Naim Prefix is one example of a commercial product that is based on those principles.