300 budget

Luxman R-1050. Excellent phono section, very good pre/power sections. Will best the Onkyo and NAD stuff. If you go with any integrated with pre-out/power-in then Chrshanl37 is correct about the jumpers. Big difference.

I would buy new. Any time I have picked up 30 year old and older equipment, I would wind up spending a few hundred dollars to have the equipment professionally serviced. There is always a power supply that goes or some other stuff.

For $300, you can pick up the Onkyo 8050 receiver . It has a phono input and enough power to drive you AR2's, which need a lot of power to get going.

Rich

Friends and myself had lots of qualty control problems with that generation of NAD gear. I much preferred the Onkyo to the NAD or Luxman, but all are good sounding gear.

While I agree that NAD makes a very good, high value integrated for the money, many of the newer used NAD's do not have phono sections. So check any model your considering carefully.

Also, if you're considering vintage, try and audition it first. Many of these units will be in need of some degree of maintenance and repair such as replacing the caps to bring it back up to factory spec. At the very least, it will need a thorough cleaning such as deoxidizing the pots. If you can do this yourself, great! If your not comfortable with this and need to take it to a shop, then you're probably going to exceed the cost of new.

So if new, consider the Yamaha A-S300 and Onkyo A-9050. Both are within your budget and have phono stages.

I agree with the Yamaha and Onkyo recommendations. Are you using AR2 speakers?