I use to own a Rotel RQ-970 and it was great for my needs. I now have a preamp with phono, the only reason I sold it. It is a Stereophile recommended component if that matters to you.
Moderately priced phono preamps
I have 500+ records and probably spend on about 5% of my listening time playing records. I have a Rega 3 turntable. I have Legacy Focus speakers ($5400), Rotel pre/processor ($2K), and 3 PSE amps ($1K each). I recently bought a Sony S9000ES CD/DVD/SACD player that I love. I'm still using my 22 year old PSE preamp ($1K in 1978) for my phono stage. I do not expect many to be familiar with the PSE, but would like to buy a phono preamp and compare it with the PSE and return it if it doesn't sound better than the PSE. Right now I'm thinking about the $200 Rotel preamp. Does anyone have comments about the Rotel or any other similarly priced phono preamps?