Designing and building my own phonostage was for a long time an idea, so I investigated several topologies and many of the DIY projects. At the end, an old design from John Linsley Hood was the most interesting, and these days mostly forgotten designs. The RIAA equalization is done in the feedback path (not passive; audiophile adepts forgive me), but we have several advantages here:

The first stage uses a THAT 1510 instrumentation amplifier, used in many mic preamps as well as in many phono stages with a good reputation. This stage linearly amplifies the MC output signal by 40 dB. This is for an active feedback circuit higher than normal, so we benefit from lower noise, and the signal leaves the first stage with a reasonable signal level. Passive circuits usually have a gain of 50 dB in the first stage because of the 20 dB loss in the passive network. So the job for the INA is not so compelling in this design. The INA is also used to invert the phase to have no overall phase shift.

The second stage is the shunt feedback RIAA stage. Compared to series feedback, our gain can go lower than 1, so no additional HF correction pole is needed. At 20 kHz we have a gain of one, so the job for the op-amp is easier than in passive designs, where this stage has to deliver about 30 dB at higher levels over the whole frequency band. Also, I filter out the lowest frequencies (disc warp rumble) before doing the RIAA with its high gain at low frequencies. After some listening tests, I stick with an OPA227 in this stage. Compared to modern parts, it has a lower gain-bandwidth product (which we do not need here; see above), but has a very high open loop gain and low 1/f noise. This is what we primarily require in this stage.

Essential for me was good RIAA accuracy with not too many parts in the network. For the type C network, the ratio between capacitors is appr. 2.9,  the combinations 2×2.2/1.5, 2×10/6.8 or 2×6.8/4.7 come pretty close, with the advantage of two equal capacitors in parallel. The finally chosen values give a very low deviation from the RIAA curve.

The power supply consists of an external transformer in combination with onboard Delon voltage double and regulation. After starting with the good old 317/337 pair with Zener as a reference, I have now tested a little more complex, but in terms of noise and regulation, a better version based on an active negative feedback circuit. It is a modification of the well-known two BJT CCS. 

Have fun building this smart little phono preamp!