Good Sounding Inexpensive Phono Preamp?

I have owned both the Creek OBH-8, Acurus P-10 and the Musical Fidelity X-LP. The Creek and MF are commonly available on this site for under $150.00 used. The Musical Fidelity is the much better phono preamp, allows use of MM or MC cartridges and the power supply can be upgraded. Highly recommended. If you want to stretch, vintage tube preamps from Audible Illusions, Precision Fidelity, Counterpoint, CJ and Musical Fidelity start at around $300.00 and have just great phono stages built in.

I have the Sumiko. Works great, no problem. I'll throw this in for good measure: they all sound the same!

I would go w/the Sumiko. Sounds excellent and is always powered up for optimal performance.

The best sounding one I have had is the Clearaudio Micro Basic!! An incredible value with outboard power supply for around 300.00
Check out needledoctor.com
here is the link for the microbasic
http://www.needledoctor.com/app/site/site.nl/site.ACCT106601/mode.items/sc.2/category.401/it.A/id.917/.f
Happy listening!
Joe
Custom Audio LLC

The current issue of HiFi+ magazine reviews 7 or 8 phono preamps, with a wide range of prices. Although the critiques are not in depth, they are useful and worth reading. The reviews cover the Project Phono Box, Rega Fono, Lehmann Audio Black Cube, GSP Audio Era Gold, Benz-Micro Lukaschek PP-1, Plinius Jarrah, Tom Evans Microgroove, and Trigon Vanguard.