Firstly, let me disclose my belief that "audiophilia" should be recognized as a legitimate mental illness. It's not that I don't appreciate good sound; I just don't seem to have the magical capacity to hear "sonic purity" or "silky musicality" that others might.
To give some background as to how I came about this, I'm currently re-setting up a project studio out here in BC. I'm trying to set up my rig so that my day to day music listening is going through the same speakers as my mixing. For my record player, I figured all I need is a phono preamp to boost the signal to line level. I could then send it to my firepod's input, which would go to my powered monitors. Sounds easy right? I was ballparking 50-100 bucks for my budget on this component, if that.
I shit you not, this was on the first page of google's search results for "buy affordable phono stage": http://www.avguide.com/buyers-guide/buy ... ono-stages
These are some of my favorite quotes:
"the Nano sweetens up the Atlanta Brass ensemble to such an extent that it almost sounds velvety and rounded"
"On balance the Phonomena was a bit more romantic, the Slee a bit more cerebral."
"My “control” phonostage for this survey was the well-regarded JR Transrotor Phono II, which at $1500 is not outrageously expensive either."
Awesome