How much difference does a phono stage make?

Going from a NAD to a really nice unit should be very worthwhile... I have a Benz Ref. Silver going into a Benz Lukascheck phono pre unit and it sounds wonderful.. your Benz is high output it looks like so you will have to find a phono unit to work with that... and you might be able to do better than the Audio Research ph3 which I think is their lowest end unit (?)

From an NAD PP2 to an ARC PH3?!...I think you'll notice a huge difference. I had an Acurus P10 with my ACE HO which I thought was really good if not awesome, until I traded it in with my current Conrad Johnson EV-1... I was and I'm still blown away by the difference. BTW, not that it should mean anything but, Michael Fremer of Stereophile gave the C-J EV-1 a class A rating while the ARC PH-3 -I believe got class B. And BTW again, if you haven't already, I still think you should research the Primare R20 -it's in you're budget -new!

PLENTY! Go for it and you will be amazed. IMHO, the difference can be more obvious than any other change in a system. Cheers.

For analog Playback the Phonostage is THE Key component. No other unit can win or decrease the signal more.
Based on that, I always spent the most money for that. Even when going back to
my beginning when I started, I had a top Phonostage even with cheap turntables
(for example, even when using a RB 300 and a 250$ cartridge, I had a Phonostage from Jeff Rowland)
Most do the other way, expensive Analog rigs with inferior and overpriced Phonostages....

The phono stage is the weak link in most analogue chains. Get the best you can stretch to afford.