Hi everyone. I'm looking at investing (at long last) in a turntable, but was just wondering on one element and would like to hear some thoughts on it.

My amp has a phono stage built in (so I could just plug the turntable into that and away I go) but from my general Googling, most phono stages built into amps seem to be, well, alright, but nothing special. So obvious option would be to get a preamp for the turntable and go into the line input on the amp, which I'm quite happy to do despite the added cost.

Any thoughts on the matter? Worth getting the turntable first and running it straight into the amp to see what it's like or would it be worth splashing out on a dedicated preamp if it's gonna be significantly better soundwise?