Best affordable phono preamp?

I've heard a few different phono amps but can't say that I've A/B'd any $5K ones. The best phono amp that I've ever heard (and others who have heard more than I concurred) is the John Atwood designed Artemis Labs. There are two versions the PH and PL 1 - the difference being the addition of transformers for LOMC in the PL 1. The PL-1 lists at about $3K so it's well within your budget.

BTW, the Lector CD player is great. I didn't splurge on that because my main love is vinyl but I thought that the sound was superb.

For half that money look at the Ayre. I tried one and it does an outstanding job. So spend 2300 on it and 2700 on vinyl.

love the vacuum stage jlti in my system. check out the one on sale here for info.

by the way, that's vacuum state, not stage.

With a budget of $5k, there are very few phono stages out of your reach, assuming that you buy used. My suggestion is to wait for a Manley Steelhead to come up for sale here on Audiogon. It's a truly oustanding phono stage with the flexibility to pair with literally any cartridge on the market. And IMO it's hard to beat the performance of the Steelhead.