What medium priced amplifier is best with vinyl?

Johnnyb53 - I fully agree about the Cambridge 640P going into an Onkyo A-9555. I also use this setup and feel it's very hard to beat for the money.

I had not considered the Onkyo, but I will have to put it on my list. Thanks Johnnyb53 adn Bobgates!

Johnnyb53 and Bobgates - I'm wondering if you saw much improvement with the Cambridge 640P as compared to the phono stage of the Onkyo A-9555. I have the A-9555 and have found the phone stage to be pretty good so I am wonder how much of a differnce you noticed? Thanks.

02-11-09: Dlclevo
Johnnyb53 and Bobgates - I'm wondering if you saw much improvement with the Cambridge 640P as compared to the phono stage of the Onkyo A-9555. I have the A-9555 and have found the phone stage to be pretty good so I am wonder how much of a differnce you noticed? Thanks.

I had the 640P before I got the Onkyo, so when I first set up the Onkyo I started using the 640P with it from the beginning. After a few weeks I decided to try out the Onkyo's phono stage. It sounded pretty good, and its tonal balance was about the same as the Cambridge, but I didn't want to go through yet another component evaluation so I simply switched back to the Cambridge.

I don't know if the Onkyo phono stage has its own need to break in by running signal through it, so I may never have heard the Onkyo phono stage at its ideal. Worst case, the Onkyo seems to be pretty close, but I think over time the Cambridge would prove itself to be the more resolving.

02-11-09: Dlclevo
Johnnyb53 and Bobgates - I'm wondering if you saw much improvement with the Cambridge 640P as compared to the phono stage of the Onkyo A-9555. I have the A-9555 and have found the phone stage to be pretty good so I am wonder how much of a differnce you noticed? Thanks.

As my previous post mentioned, since I already had the 640P, I just set up my Onkyo with the 640P from the beginning, and never really gave serious consideration to the Onkyo's phono stage until tonight.

Your question continued to stick in my craw, so tonight I bypassed the 640P and plugged my Technics SL1210 M5G with fluid damper directly into the Onkyo. All I can say is YOWZAH! In my setup the built-in Onkyo phono stage is better than the outboard 640P in every way.

I suppose it could be a capacitive loading issue. The direct plug-in to the Onkyo sounded more relaxed, more delineated, and especially had much more ambient detail retrieval. It also lost some midrange glare and hardness that I'd been hearing through the 640P that I'd been attributing to other factors up to now--a direct drive TT, an Audio Technica cartridge, a switching amp, etc. But it was the Cambridge and it alone.

Even if it's a capacitive loading issue, it tells me that in this case the Cambridge is more trouble than it would be worth. I had connected the Cambridge to a line level input on the Onkyo with a pair of AudioQuests made of single crystal six-nines copper, and AQ is well known for musicality and low capacitance in their interconnects. One meter of AQ shouldn't have made that much difference in the capacitance anyway.

So save your money and enjoy your system!