Thanks for the suggestions guys! I'll definitely trust y'all on the surround AVR, but is there anyway you could give me a short explanation as to why they'd want this? I know they're gonna make me justify why they need it and I don't wanna get caught with my pants down haha.
I'll check to see if anyone's got a receiver we can use. I'm also not above going used if y'all think there is something I should be keeping an eye out for on the Nashville craigslist/ musician gear trading forums.
What
@slipperybidness said. Note that you can get a pretty decent phono preamp for around $30 on Amazon, so don't let that be a deal breaker. If you hold out for a receiver with a phono input, you might pay several hundred dollars more just for that one feature.
Something that caught my eye on Nashville Craigslist was a
pair of Dahlquist speakers. They might be worth an audition. There's also a
Marantz SR7000 AVR for $100 that's worth a strong look. It's several years old, but has strong, clean power. It's also got an integrated switched A/C outlet passthrough, which would let you power on the turntable at the same time as the receiver. For subwoofer, I didn't see any better deals than the RSL Speedwoofer I linked earlier. Well, I did see a
Paradigm sub that I suspect nothing is wrong with (the seller might be describing a ground loop that could be resolved simply by plugging the sub into the same circuit as the source), but I couldn't guarantee it. And there wouldn't be any subtle way to test that without alerting the seller that he should be asking for more money I don't think.
