[anexprogrammer]

When I rip vinyl I want as little processing as possible, so no messing around with high pass and pop removal. If it's new or decent condition vinyl the pops and hiss will be barely audible anyway.

Far more important to have a decent MC cartridge, and make sure it goes through a decent phono (RIAA) stage, which generally means an older hifi amp, or not-cheap hifi component.

Any phono stage of the last 20 years, or the "rip your old records" turntables generally use lowest quality crap going.

[TylerE]

Eh, there are tons of EXCELLENT and not-very-expensive modern phono stages. Just avoid DJ stuff

[voltagex_]

Why avoid DJ stuff? Isn't a Technics deck going to be better than your run of the mill USB vinyl "recorder"?

[anexprogrammer]

I guess it depends where you place "not very expensive", £100-200 will get you a good hifi preamp phono stage with MC/MM. You can pay far more if you want silly esoterica. It's not very far removed from the quality that would typically come "free" with a decent mid-market older preamp.

[TylerE]

Not just older amps can have good built-ins.

Perviously I was running a standalone phono stage (Can't remember the exact model offhand, but it was $250 or so - solid, well reviewed component.) I upgrade to a Rega Brio amp about 2 years ago which has a built in phono stage that was even better.