If your on a really tight budget, Creek, NAD, Parasound,Bellari all make starter options that perform very well. For a few more bucks try a used Musical Surroundings "Phonomena" which will allow you almost any cart you may try later.
Decent low-cost used phono amp
Although not an analog guy, a friend has offered to give me his AR turntable with Shure V15 II cartridge, the same analog setup I had as a post doc decades ago. But I'll need a phono amp to feed the AUX input of my Proceed PAV. Any suggestions?
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