Who makes your favorite vintage phono sections???


My genius the ubergeek PHd candidate nephew has been bitten and smitten by the audiofoolya bug. He is much taken with vinyl and wants to put together a low cost vintage system.

He asked me, and I am asking you to help identify which brands/products/models of integrated amps had especially good phono sections and deserve to be on the ultra short list?

Your thoughts will help us to narrow our search. The more specific the better...

Thanks for your help
ckorody
Funny back in the 70s I just plugged my TT into the phono plug on my Reciever and just played it....Sony Receiver. 
# 1 choice for me is my own design. # 2 choice is my old Spatial preamp. # 3 choice is my CJ preamp.
I had an early '70s Tandberg reel-to-reel that had a built-in phono preamp that has pretty much spoiled me ever since.
A Sansui AU D11 is what I use. It has been upgraded and has the gain to play most any cart. I run a ZYX into mine. Very happy with the sound.
Have to agree the A U series of Sansui Integrateds are quite nice all around..I have tried a few Vintage Marantz Recievers and was quite happy with them until I found the Sansui AU 517 int.. I ended up selling the Marantz..The Sansui just seemed to be much more natural and transparent sounding comapared to the overly warm Marantz.............
Without question the early Sansui AU series were (and still are) very impressive.
Luxman L-series from the eighties, I had the L-410 for many years and, briefly, the L-560 (this class A amp ran so hot, you could fry eggs on it). Mind you, I haven't heard either of these machines for a long time, so there may be some nostalgia here, but at the time they beat all the more popular brands in their price range that I had heard. Perhaps this site is of some interest to you http://www.thevintageknob.org/
Good luck
Karel