Sure, but only if you understand the inescapable relationship between price and performance, which is especially obvious with ‘small signal’ audio, like vinyl.

There is enormous variation among phono preamplifiers, and sound technical reasons why the best phono preamps, ie not Cambridge Audio, Gold Note, NAD, Pro-Ject, etc, are genuinely expensive. The quality of parts, engineering and execution found in the best phono preamps is extraordinary, and they need to be, given the extraordinarily small signals and high gain requirements. Anybody working in studios, with microphones and mic preamps, understands this only too well.

Cheap = cheap, and cheap phono preamps really only serve the function of adding vinyl playback to affordable systems that don’t already have it, where sound quality doesn’t matter. If this is your use case and you don’t mind the ordinary performance delivered by cheap phono preamplifiers, then no problem, I have no issue with that.

That use case does not reflect most vinyl lovers, however. For those who DO care about the sonic results and love the high-resolution performance of vinyl, cheap phono preamps are a terrible option. They sound coarse, grainy, noisy, thin, unrefined, veiled, lack dynamics and possess narrow soundstages and poor imaging. People worried about this really should reconsider a cheap phono preamp purchase.

What constitutes ‘cheap’? For me, anything under $300 is not worth buying, unless you literally cannot save up for anything better, or it’s for background music use only. Spending $500 – $1000 brings improved performance, but should be approached with caution. Between $1K and $3K, things improve significantly and over $3K there is potential to acheive really excellent perforce, especially when looking at pre-owned gear.

When buying new, avoid anything with Prolink, Beringer, Pyle, etc on it, unless you want a steaming ‘pyle’ of sh…! Pre-owned equipment is a different story. $1500 will buy you a $7000 Accuphase AD-290 phono module, below. You’ll still need a rather more expensive Accuphase preamplifier to run it in, however, but you get the idea.

OK, I know you want to see inside…

Here’s a look at a later Accuphase AD-2820, courtesy of one of my customers, from around 2011:

Wanna see an even better phono preamp? Try the new Accuphase C-57: