Kiwi:

The thing that struck me was how much better the LP's sounded than I remembered them. I can only conclude that the superior quality of today's electronics also impacts "yesterday's" playback sources.

I also didn't want to pay an arm and a gonad for a phono preamp. I purchased a used Rotel for $125, which always scored well in the sometimes reliable pages of Stereophile. It retails for just under $200 and supports both moving magnet and moving coil carts.

Another very credible possibility that I haven't heard is a little battery-powered phono preamp from Radio Shack (of all places...) You can do a web search and uncover info about this $25 gadget that some audiophiles swear by.

You can check out this thread: http://ubb.outlawaudio.com/ubb/Forum15/HTML/000739.html

Bob

PS -- Here's a quote from a website regarding the Radio Shack preamp:

"For the phono amp another budget item from Radio Shack their magnetic cartridge stereo preamp, cat.#: 970-1018 for $25. Being battery powered it is very clean sounding but really doesn't have the gain to use low output MC cartridge this limits you to the higher output MM cartridges, not a real problem there's good MM cartridges."

PPS -- We should now return to AJ's previously scheduled thread.

[This message has been edited by boblinds (edited March 25, 2003).]