Suggestions for an amplifier w/ good phono stage?

[HotziHo]

Hi,

I need some advise on buying a new amplifier with good phono stage, or a combination of a receiver and a pre-amp.

My girlfriend gave me her father's Dual 504 turntable as a gift.
It's in excellent condition. I had the belt and sound cables replaced, I bought an Ortofon OM5E cartrigde, a pair of Cambridge Audio S30 bookself speakers and now I just have to buy a receiver.
Later I might buy a Projector for movies, so I would like to be able to connect my laptop to the receiver as well.

I am thinking of Buying a Cambridge Audio amp for the synergy, also because I like the simple design of CA, but I am open to other suggestions.

I can spend up to 400,00eur / $500,00 but I'd rather spend less than that.

Your help will be much appreciated.

P.S. Excuse any grammar mistakes, English is not my native language.

Thank you.

 

[Al ears]

Hi HotziHo, welcome to the madhouse.

Firstly I think I can see what you want but you will have to clarify in case I have it wrong.

You are looking for an amp with good inbuilt phono stage, of which there are quite a few, then you talk of receivers as if going down the Audio / Visual route. You will be hard pressed to find AV receivers with a good inbuilt phono stage so you will be requiring an external phono preamp.

If you really want to add a projector / laptop into the system then the Cambridge Amp is out of the question.

Although I have had plenty of phono preamps in my system over the years I have never had the experience of adding one to an AV Receiver so have no idea how this set-up would sound.

Hopefully some other forum members might have more insight regards a set-up like this.

To add confusion you might like to read this short post:-

http://www.whathifi.com/forum/turntables-and-lps/playing-vynil-records-on-a-turntable-through-av-amp

 

[Al ears]

After a brief discussion with some knowledgeable mates it would indeed seem that a phono stage in a relatively cheap AV receiver is a very rare beast.

I believe you have but one option, buy an Onkyo TX-NR626 ....... available for 299 of your UK pounds.....

 

[CarlDW]

Rotel RA-12 maybe? Good phono stage and USB input for the laptop. Around £600 so maybe slightly over budget though...

 

[HotziHo]

@All ears

Thank you for your reply.

I though a receiver and an amplifier is just the same thing with two different names. :doh:

So, to make things more clear: I want to buy an integrated amplifier mostly for my turntable, so the priority would be an intergrated amp with a good built in phono stage. I would also be glad, if the same devise could be somehow connected to the laptop, so I can listen to my mp3s and the sound of the movies that will be conncted from the laptop to the projector and the int.amp.

Does that make more sense? Sorry for the confusion..

@Carl DW

Thank you for the suggestion, but that stretches my budget a lot as £600 = 725EUR.

 

[jerry klinger]

Rotel is what you want in this price range, as in addition to being excellent amplifiers they have really really good built-in phono stages. I suggest you look at their range and select the best one for your price.

As far as the 'receiver' terminology is concerned, this USED to mean (when I was a lad) an amplifier with a radio tuner built in. Then the AV boys got hold of it (especially in the USA) and it came to mean a massive unit with several channels and inputs/outputs for various video-related uses (not really receiving anything that I can make out, so wrong word boys)....

Good job you didn't ask about streamers/renderers/network players..... (the hifi industry has never been very good at naming things) 8)

 

[HotziHo]

Unfortunately the cheapest Rotel I can find where I live is RC1550 which costs 690,00eur.

I also read somewhere that the combination of Cambridge Audio S30 and Rotel RA-10 is very harsh, and I prefer warm sound.

Here's my shortlist:

CAMBRIDGE AUDIO AZUR 350A

HARMAN KARDON 3490

DENON PMA 520AE

NAD C316 BEE

CAMBRIDGE AUDIO TOPAZ SR-10

I can also find the following used amps in good (looking) condition for cheap (100-200eur) :

LUXMAN L30 & L4

SANSUI A40

TECHNICS SU Z1

NAD 310

ARCAM DELTA 60

AKAI AM2200