My head hurts.. I asked myself this same question a bit over a year ago. I purchased new a McIntosh MA12000, SL1200G with Hana cartridge and I innocently asked myself if things would be even better with a separate phono amp. I then went down the road of trying to find a phono preamp. I tried and returned a phono preamp in the $3k price range, but wanted to my ear a more realistic musical sound. I can tell you right now, that is a very dangerous thing to wish for. If you look at my profile you can see that I passed on buying a new car as I upgraded each piece of equipment. In fact, I still have my SL1200G/Hana because it traumatizes me to look at it. In the end, I don’t know what made the most difference, but in terms of sounding more musical, it was my phono preamp upgrade. In retrospect, I think that I would have been better to have put all that money into the digital side of my system, but then again, I can’t bring myself to get rid of my collection of film cameras. Just a personality defect. Careful with the road you are about to go down and recognize that you can get more bang for your “investment” by maxing out the digital side. A few years ago I would not have believed that digital could rival vinyl.
Do I need a phono preamp?
So about 2 years ago, I got the vinyl bug in a big way, particularly jazz (Blue Note especially). I started with a Technics SL1210GR table (before I got the bug) and frankly, it's done good service, but I've decided to upgrade to the SL1200G. I have a range of carts, from an MM Ortofon Blue to a high output MC AT-art9xi (additional cart reco's are welcomed!). I have Revel Performa 228's, one Rythmik sub, a McIntosh MC312 amp, and a McIntosh C53 preamp. The C53 is known to have a pretty darn good phono-pre for an all-in-one solution, and my listening experience supports that. It's hard for me to imagine it could be vastly improved (I realize this is likely mistaken).
My question is simple, and one you've heard countless times before---am I doing a disservice to the system without a separate phone-pre? If so, recommendations please ($3,000 +/-). Btw, I'm under the impression that the cart is more important to the choice of a phono-pre than the table, so your thoughts on that would also be appreciated.
Thanks!