Good reciever to buy with phono stage


Hello. I'm looking for the best reciever to buy with a phono stage for around $600. I have a technics 1200mkII with a denon 160 cartridge. The reciever would be used for my turntable as well as my 5.1 system. My front speakers are active and my rears are passive (and tiny). So I would need something that is able to give me preamp outs for the front and regular speaker level for the rears. Hopefully it would also have atleast one optical input.

Am I asking to much for this price point? My main concern is the phono stage sounding good, I was gonna buy a pro-ject tube box II. But an all in one would make more sense to me budget wise...
glassjaw
I am a big fan of Onkyo receivers. I have an 805 and it is fabulous for decoding many different formats, is reliable, and very user-friendly. The 606 is about $450 online, or you can put a little more into it and move up the food chain. I have used the phono stage just to try it, but use a dedicated phono stage now. Even the tuner is great. Good luck.
Have a look for the older Rotel Recievers from the late 1990ies............ some do even feature several good surround options AND Phono. Best sound for the money.