By "affordable" in this case, I mean $500 and under.
These are the specs for my current receiver (on paper, of course). In a perfect world, I'd want an amp with a phono stage built-in that is in the ballpark of being as good. But it sounds like that's not really available at my price point.
haha, And I'm aware that digital is superior, both in terms of performance and in terms of value; I'm not one of those dudes who's insisting otherwise. Feel free to judge me for making poor choices! But I've already sunken quite a bit of dough and effort into collecting records/turntables/cartridges, so I want to make the most of what I have and enjoy it. That doesn't mean I'm looking to attain "auditory nirvana," however, via vinyl reproduction; I know and understand how silly that is. Just to reiterate: my goal is just to get comparable performance using components that are brand new (vs. from the 1970s).