Phono Stage w/Pot for analog only rig

How about the deluxe unit by EAR. Designed by the brilliant Tim de Paravicini. It can be ordered with or without volume pot, has an excellent onboard transformer if you wish to use a MC and both looks and sounds excellent. Cost is around 1200.00 so you'll have lots left over to buy albusms with.

Check out the Art Audio Vinyl One on the used market (~1500). With NOS tubes, it is very good. Good luck.

I agree with Jcbtubes about the Art Audio Vinyl One. It replaced a Pass Aleph Ono and sounds much richer and lifelike, especially in the lower frequencies.

Thank you for the repsonse. Now what if I decided to go with a line stage and separate phono and would then not need a pot on the phono?

I worry about anything correctly describable as a volume pot (as opposed to a ladder stepped attenuator), since in my experience even an potentiometer with an audiophile rep, like Alps Black Beauty, say, degrades the sound and can take away some of the quality you may be paying major money for elsewhere in the phono preamp. Can you build your own stepped attenuator, or get one from Goldpoint, say? Or even build one into a phono preamp, in the sense of putting preamp and attenuator(s) in a single DIY chassis? I did that with an AHT DM-P phono preamp and have never looked back. You can even get wild and use Audio Note Japan tantalum resistors, for a warmer, more tube-like sound.