I agree with Sidog on the Audible Illusions 3A, 3B or even a fine conditioned 2D. All of them have great sounding phono sections along with excellent CD inputs. For about $400-500 extra you can get a low output MC phono section made by John Curl for AI. I had a 2D for about 17 years, a 3A for an additional 6 years with the MC phono section. The sound is very transparent, more live sounding than most tube preamps, with excellent soundstage and quiet. If you stay with the tubes AI recommends, the tubes last a long time. Combined with a good solid state amp gives a good combination. I now have a system that is much better in all ways than I had with the Audible Illusions preamps, but they would still be very competitive in sound and not be embarrassed in any way. The AI stuff is THE best deal in all of audio for sound at a somewhat reasonable price.
It took a TRL DUDE at $6500 and a Whest 3.0 RDT SE phono unit at $6000 to have significantly better sounding combo than the AI stuff. I also had to buy power cords, a better IC, to get this bigger improvement.
The AI preamps sound really good all by themselves with no extra things to have to buy. The newest 3B would be a step up over what I had. At your $2500 max budget, I don’t know of any other preamp/phono combo that could compete in sound or long life use. They are good enough that you could upgrade around them and not get outclassed.
Bob
It took a TRL DUDE at $6500 and a Whest 3.0 RDT SE phono unit at $6000 to have significantly better sounding combo than the AI stuff. I also had to buy power cords, a better IC, to get this bigger improvement.
The AI preamps sound really good all by themselves with no extra things to have to buy. The newest 3B would be a step up over what I had. At your $2500 max budget, I don’t know of any other preamp/phono combo that could compete in sound or long life use. They are good enough that you could upgrade around them and not get outclassed.
Bob