Thoughts on best budget phono pre-amp under $400?

My friend has a Budgie (very nice). Be aware that your cartridge needs at least 5 mv of output. The gain is on the low side !
http://parksaudiollc.com/budgiepreamp.html

Musical Surroundings Phenomena ll

Lots and lots of great choices for sure, which just leaves me even more confused...lol.
I have to say I am an occasional vinyl listener as main source now is mostly Tidal or ripped music from my Bluesound Vault 2. But when I do listen I want it to be as good as my budget allows.
I am still pretty impressed with the little Azur 551p I am using tbh, and looked up its replacement the Cambridge Audio cp2 which the needledoctor has on sale for 179 free shipping brand new!
Anybody have any experience with that unit at all?

PS Audio III still competitive with present day gear! I owned one years ago and stupidly sold it! But I already had a Precision Fidelity C7 tube phono stage! Which I stupidly later sold! Wish I could learn from my mistakes!

Lots and lots of great choices for sure, which just leaves me even more confused...lol.

Just to add to the confusion :-) your cartridge has a particularly low recommended load capacitance of 100 pf. Since that value represents the sum of the input capacitance of the phono stage and the capacitances of the phono cable and tonearm wiring (as well as the small amounts of capacitance of the connectors that are involved) it can be hard to achieve.

I wouldn’t worry about exceeding that value by say 50 or 100 pf, but for example the AcousTech PH-1 that was suggested has an input capacitance for moving magnet cartridges of 200 pf (220 pf for the PH-1P), which together with the other capacitances I mentioned will most likely result in a total that is more than 3x as much as the recommendation. The result is likely to be an over-emphasis of the mid-treble combined with some degree of rolloff of the upper treble.

I haven’t looked into the other models that have been suggested, and I’m not particularly familiar with phono stages in your price range, but I would suggest looking for a phono stage having an input capacitance in the area of 50 to 100 pf, or even lower if possible. If that parameter is not specified for a particular model, check with the manufacturer.

Good luck. Regards,
-- Al