I have a Beogram 8002 with a Soundsmith SMMC1 cartridge and the MMP3 phono preamp and it sounds absolutely wonderful. I’ve read that the Soundsmith preamps are designed for their cartridges. There are a lot of opinions regarding vinyl that it is nowhere as near as good as the digital version, but that is not my experience at all. I guess a lot of it would depend on the quality of the record, cartridge, and preamp. I could listen to vinyl all day and never tire of the sound, but it some work prepping the album for play.
I think the choice of phone preamp depends on how much enjoyment you want to get from your vinyl, and how revealing your system is to be able to hear small differences. As Mark-sf says, pretty much any moving magnet phono preamp should be able to do the job, and there are budget phono preamps that are very good. I’ve had several budget preamps (not the ones listed above) but I don’t remember saying “oh wow!” when I listened to albums with them. The Soundsmith MMP4 is about $800 US, that’s quite an investment, but if you are after the best sound, have a good system, and think you may someday upgrade to one of the other Soundsmith cartridges, that could be a serious contender.
Good luck in your quest!
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