Preamp Phono Stage v Standalone + Linestage

Lester ears,

Since you haven't provided a budget I'll just give my suggestion for a preamp you'd probably keep forever. The Supratek Syrah is just the piece. Very affordable at $2500 and a remote option is available for another $150. The phono section will handle any cartridge. It's a real world class performer that bests a lot of competition at multiples of its price point.

There are pros and cons for each. In my experience, there are some very nice phono amps integrated in line amps, this also means the signal doesn't need to travel through an extraneous, longish run of a potentially expensive interconnect. Some people prefer the flexibility of a seperate phono amp, however, as it allows you to use different amps for different applications. That gets pretty exensive ;)

I have been seriously enjoying my JJ Electronic 243 integrated 12ax7 tube preamp. The phono section is driven by four tubes and sounds wonderful. The 243 is very affordable; got mine at $1550 and I prefer to some preamps costing twice as much or more. It's really a very good, overacheiving preamp IMHO and I'd recommend it.

Lester,

There are good internal and external phono stages ranging from a few hundred dollars to over $10,000.

What is your budget? What is the rest of your system? Help us out a little.

I sometimes wish my vintage Yamaha A-1 dual mono integrated could be hotrodded to 2003 spec's and forget about all them interconnects, outboard power supplies, electronic crossover, line pre amp, DAC + phono stage & corresponding outboard power supplies, power amps, filters, power cords, subwoofers...