The Best Phono Preamps With a USB Output

A phono preamp with a USB output is two things in one box: a phono stage that lifts the cartridge’s few millivolts to line level and applies the RIAA curve, and an analog-to-digital converter that sends the result to a computer. Our digitizing guide describes that as route 2 — a separate stage into a separate converter — and stops short of naming hardware. This page is the hardware: four boxes we could verify as purchasable, and the one turntable in our registry that makes the box unnecessary.

The first thing the research turned up is the thing that decides how this page is ranked. Every converter here is 16-bit, and none goes above 48 kHz. NAD publishes 16-bit at 48 kHz. ART publishes 16-bit at 44.1 or 48 kHz. Dynasty ProAudio publishes 16-bit at 44.1 or 48 kHz. Behringer publishes 16-bit at 32, 44.1 or 48 kHz. The Audio-Technica AT-LP120XUSB’s built-in USB output is 16-bit at 44.1 or 48 kHz. That is one ceiling, shared by the cheapest interface here and one costing several times as much, and it is the same ceiling the digitizing guide already showed sits about 29 dB above the noise floor of the quietest turntable we can cite. So the converter is not the reason to pick one of these over another. The phono stage is.

What to look for in a USB phono stage

What the maker publishes about the stage itself. Gain, input impedance and capacitance, a noise figure with its reference stated, an RIAA tolerance, an overload figure. These are the numbers that say whether your cartridge will be loaded correctly and how much of the record’s dynamic range survives the stage. NAD publishes all of them. ART publishes gain, loading, a maximum input level and a noise figure referenced to clipping. Dynasty publishes the input level and the noise figure but no gain and no loading. Behringer’s specification table has a Line In section and no Phono In section at all. That spread is the ranking.

A subsonic filter with a published corner. Warped records produce large sub-20 Hz swings that eat digital headroom and force you to record quieter. A filter that removes them is the single most useful feature for digitizing, and it only counts if the maker says where it acts. ART publishes a switchable low-cut at −3 dB, 22 Hz. NAD publishes an infrasonic filter as −14 dB at 5 Hz, with no slope, which means its effect at 20 Hz cannot be worked out from the figure given. Dynasty and Behringer publish no filter.

A level control on the box, with a clip indicator. Digital clipping is a hard limit; a clipped transient means recording the side again. The ART has a −10 to +10 dB gain trim and a signal/clip LED in front of the converter. NAD publishes a record level control with a 0 to −6 dB range. Behringer has no control on the unit, and its manual tells you to set the recording program’s input sensitivity instead — which is after the converter, where a clipped signal is already clipped.

A line output that stays live.The box will be a USB interface for a few weekends and a phono stage for years. ART states its preamp line out is “always connected to the input preamp signal”; Dynasty states its line out “can be used as a stand-alone Phono Preamp”; NAD publishes a line output impedance of 100 Ω and runs from an external supply, so it does not need a computer to be powered. Behringer’s line out has a published impedance and level, but the manual does not say whether it carries the phono signal with no computer attached, and the box has no power input other than USB.

Moving-coil support, if you need it.One box here has it. The NAD PP 4 publishes 58 dB of gain into 100 Ω for MC. Behringer states moving magnet only; Dynasty states moving magnet; ART’s manual never says either, though its 47 kΩ / 100 pF loading and 45 dB ceiling are moving-magnet figures. If your cartridge is a moving coil, our MM vs MC explainer covers why the gain difference is not optional.

How the ranking works

Published phono-stage data first; a filter with a stated corner second; a level control before the converter third; stand-alone use and how the box is powered fourth; moving-coil support fifth. Price does not move the order, which is why a box costing several times as much ranks above one that we would, for most moving-magnet owners, tell you to buy instead — that recommendation is at the end of the page, and it is made on price, not on the criteria. The converter does not appear in the list at all, because it is the same on every unit.

The stage with everything written down, and one row left blank

The NAD PP 4 publishes 35 dB of gain for moving magnet and 58 dB for moving coil at 1 kHz, loading of 47 kΩ + 200 pF and 100 Ω + 180 pF respectively, input sensitivity of 5 mV and 0.38 mV for a 200 mV output, signal-to-noise of 76 and 78 dB A-weighted with the cartridge connected, input overload at three frequencies, RIAA accuracy of ±0.3 dB, dynamic range of 89 and 86 dB, and a record level control from 0 to −6 dB. It also has a separate line input with its own published loading for cassette transfers, so tape never goes through the phono stage. It ranks first because it is the only unit on the page whose noise figure states what it is referenced to and how it is weighted, the only one with a published RIAA tolerance, and the only one with an MC position.

Its cons are real. The USB output is 48 kHz only, so a CD-rate file means resampling on the computer. The infrasonic filter is published as −14 dB at 5 Hz with no slope and no corner, so we cannot say what it does at 20 Hz. The row on NAD’s own spec table labeled “Rated Distortion (THD 20Hz – 20kHz)” has no value beside it, for MM or MC — a heading with nothing under it. There is no headphone or monitor output. No weight is published. And it costs four to eight times what the other boxes here do, for the same 16-bit converter. What that money buys is documentation and a moving-coil position, and if you need neither, the next pick is the one to read.

The box built around the act of recording

The ART USB Phono Plus PS publishes 45 dB of maximum phono gain with a front-panel trim of −10 to +10 dB and a signal/clip LED, 47 kΩ / 100 pF loading, a 40 mV rms maximum phono input, THD below 0.01% at 1 kHz, a switchable low-cut filter at −3 dB, 22 Hz, a monitor output with a preamp / computer / both switch for zero-latency listening, TOSLINK and coaxial digital inputs to USB, and a preamp line out that the manual says is “always connected to the input preamp signal”. It runs on USB bus power or an optional external 7–12 V supply that overrides the bus. It ranks second because it publishes less about the stage than NAD does — no RIAA tolerance, no overload figure at 20 Hz or 20 kHz, and a noise figure referenced to clipping rather than to a cartridge level — and first on every criterion after that: the only filter with a published corner, the only trim with a clip LED in front of the converter, and a line out with a documented always-on path.

Three things in its manual deserve flagging. The frequency response is printed as “10 Hz – 50 kHz, +/- 0.5%” — a percentage tolerance on a frequency response, which is not a convention we know how to convert to decibels, so we quote it as printed and use it for nothing. The manual never says moving magnet or moving coil; the loading and gain are MM figures and we treat it as an MM stage. And the digital inputs go only to the computer — the manual’s own FAQ says they cannot be converted to analog — so the optical and coaxial sockets make it a second interface for a CD transport or a TV, not a DAC.

The same figures as the ART, minus the two that describe the stage

The Dynasty ProAudio UA2D publishes a 40 mV rms maximum phono input at 1 kHz, +19 dBu on the line input, hum and noise greater than 89 dB below clipping, THD of 0.01% at 1 kHz, a 10 Hz – 20 kHz ±0.5 dB response, a 16-bit converter at 44.1 or 48 kHz, an RCA preamp line out that the maker states can be used as a stand-alone phono stage, and a monitor/headphone mini-jack. Read beside ART’s table those figures track it line for line, one decibel apart on noise. What is missing is the gain and the loading — the two rows that say what the stage does to the cartridge — and any mention of a filter. It ranks third: above Behringer because it publishes a phono input ceiling, a noise figure and a stand-alone claim for the line out, and below ART because it publishes nothing about gain or impedance and has no documented control on the box. Amazon returned a price but no availability string when we resolved it; the maker’s own store listed it in stock the same day.

The cheapest way in, and the stage nobody described

The Behringer U-PHONO UFO202 publishes a proper converter table: 16-bit at 32, 44.1 or 48 kHz, A/D signal-to-noise of 89 dB and D/A of 96 dB at 1 kHz A-weighted, THD of 0.05% at −10 dBV, crosstalk of −77 dB, and a ±1 dB frequency response at each sample rate. It runs from USB bus power alone, weighs about 100 g, has a ground screw and a headphone output, and costs less than anything else on the page. It ranks fourth because the table that describes the converter so carefully has no phono section: no gain, no input impedance, no capacitance, no RIAA figure and no filter. The manual’s only statement about the stage is that it supports moving-magnet cartridges. There is no level control on the unit; the instruction is to adjust the recording program’s input sensitivity, which is on the far side of the converter. USB is 1.1 on a captive cable. And while the RCA line out has a published 400 Ω impedance and 2 dBV maximum, Behringer does not say whether it carries the phono signal with nothing on the USB end, so we cannot tell you it works as a stand-alone stage.

The live listing is Behringer’s own UFO202-BK SKU, which Behringer titles a “Vinyl Recording Bundle” — the unit with its bundled software, not a third-party kit. We name it because “bundle” in a listing title usually means something else.

The turntable that makes the box unnecessary

The Audio-Technica AT-LP120XUSB is ranked outside the criteria above, because it is not a phono preamp. It is here because it answers the question a reader of this page is actually asking — how do I get a record into a computer — without buying a second box. Its manual publishes a switchable 36 dB nominal phono stage and a USB output at 16-bit, 44.1 or 48 kHz over USB 1.1: the same ceiling as every stage on this page, on a deck with a removable headshell and an AT-VM95E on it. What it lacks is everything the boxes above compete on: no filter, no level control, no published noise figure for the stage alone (Audio-Technica publishes 50 dB for the deck), and no moving-coil position. Our full review covers the deck; the honest summary for this page is that if you are buying a turntable anyway and digitizing is an occasional need, the built-in USB output makes every box here optional. If you already own a deck you like, it does not.

Why the noise figures on this page cannot be lined up

NAD publishes 76 dB A-weighted with the cartridge connected, which is a figure referenced to the input — to a 5 mV cartridge signal. ART and Dynasty publish noise as more than 90 and 89 dB “below clipping”, which is referenced to the output ceiling. Behringer publishes 89 dB for the converter and nothing for the stage. Three references, three different questions. A clipping-referenced figure is always the larger number, because it measures down from the loudest signal the stage can pass rather than up from the quiet one a cartridge actually delivers; on the ART, with a 40 mV input ceiling and a 4 mV cartridge, roughly 20 dB of that 90 dB is headroom the record never uses. We publish each figure as its maker states it and rank NAD’s above the others not because 76 is bigger than 90 — it is not — but because it is the only one that can be checked against the cartridge you own.

Three we could not include

The Pro-Ject Record Box E is still on Pro-Ject’s site with a full specification — 40 dB MM and 60 dB MC, a 16-bit Burr-Brown converter at 32, 44.1 or 48 kHz, 94 dB A-weighted noise for MM — and on published data it would have ranked first or second. Every Amazon listing we could find for it, four ASINs, returned “Currently unavailable” on 2026-09-20, and we do not ship a buy button that cannot exist. The Rega Fono Mini A2D MK2 publishes 16-bit at 44.1 kHz (48 kHz maximum) and a 78 dBA noise figure, and has no Amazon listing at all; the only hits are third-party power adapters “compatible with” it. The Reloop iPhono 2 was live at Amazon on the same day and is marked “This Product is discontinued” on Reloop’s own page, with a specification that lists a 16-bit converter and no sample rate, no gain and no noise figure. Two units in stock of a product its maker has ended is not a pick.

What we would buy

For a moving-magnet cartridge, the ART USB Phono Plus PS. It publishes the loading, the gain and the input ceiling, it is the only box with a filter that says where it acts and a trim that lets you set the level before the converter, and its line out is documented as always live. It ranks second on the criteria and first on price for what it publishes. For a moving-coil cartridge, or if a published RIAA tolerance and an input-referenced noise figure are what you are paying for, the NAD PP 4 — knowing that its files will be 48 kHz and that its own distortion row is blank. If the budget is the Behringer and nothing else, it will put a record into a computer; you will just be doing it with a stage nobody has described and a level control you do not have. And if the deck is not bought yet, the AT-LP120XUSB on our under-$500 page gives you the same 16-bit ceiling with no second box at all. Whichever route, the settings that matter — level, sample rate, no noise reduction on the way in — are in the digitizing guide, and the stages with no USB output at all are ranked on the under-$200 phono preamp page.