Budget Phono Amp / Stage Recommendation?

First, congrats on a great turntable choice! You are starting out with a classic that sounds just marvelous.

I have owned the Gram Amp 2SE, Creek OBH 8SE, Musical Fidelity X-LP with X-PSU and Ault power suppplies, 640P, Lehmann Black Cube and a few others. Not all at the same time, I might add. My first choice would be a Bottlehead Seduction or AES PH-1 hands down.

If one is set on picking from the list above or has an aversion to tubes, my choice would be the Creek OBH-8SE. Second would be the Gram Amp 2SE, and many would prefer it's greater clarity and openness, but the Creek has more weight and that just makes it more balanced in my opionion, though darker, more shut-in and less detailed. Neither hold a candle to the Seduction or PH-1 though.

Try an Acurus P10. It should be available at the high end of your price range. It has internal DIP switches and no power switch, but once you get the settings right, it sounds great for the price.

Michael

My vote Cambridge 640. Its their best unit and is in a quality range slightly above budget. So it may suit your needs for a while.

Updates: I had to return the Thorens TD-150 mk 2 as it produced a cracking sound when on 45rpm. The lever is raised much higher than what it was meant to be and it interfered with the platter rotation. The ground connection is also very loose, producing loud humming. I am sure these minor issues can be fixed but I did not want to fuss with it. The overall condition was not very good. The face was sprayed painted silver and the original ink work are all covered with stickers. Sound wise, it's fantastic! Very musical as many have mentioned. The seller was very kind to take it back with full refund. So it's back to square one in my search for my first TT.

As I am in Singapore, not many reasonable price vintage Thorens are available. I may consider a NEW rega p3-24 or another better condition Thoren that comes my way. Tough!

All the nice phono stages mentioned here are really very hard to find in Singapore. If I buy from ebay, I would need to convert the voltage to 220v here in Singapore with a transformer. Locally, only the Cambridge Audio, NAD, Pro-Ject, Thorens phono, Rega, Denon are easily available new.

For used items:
Someone is selling an old Trichord Dino mk1 for SGD$450 (singapore $, which is about USD$350). Found a used NAD PP-2 for only SGD$80 (USD $62), tentatively I have bought it from my dealer.

The Cambridge Audio 640p goes for SGD$230 (USD$178) NEW.

So, it does look like it's between the used NAD PP2 or the new Cambridge Audio 640p. I would really like to try out the Graham Slee Gram Amp 2SE. Alas, hard to come by. Bellari ships internationally, but it would cost me over SGD$360 in all for the V130 (with shipping).

Get the 640P. It's in your range and it seems to compete with anything up to around $400. I've had mine for 2-1/2 years. It's very dynamic but is also good at teasing out inner detail. I never noticed "barely there" vocal harmonies mixed into some recordings until I got the Cambridge.