JC3+ With Kleos SL?

I wouldn’t go that route, what minimal increases you are likely to gain with the lower output SL, you will almost certainly lose with pushing the phono stage into potential distortion. 
Probably depends on how much gain you enjoy listening at, but I always believe that the lowest output cartridges essentially throw away their gains with the losses at the phono stage. I’m no fan of these ultra low output cartridges for this reason.

@robbob, since you had already made up your mind, I'm not understanding the point of your OP??


If the phono stage is working too hard to amplify the signal, you will get distortion...unless you are going to be happy with a very low output from your system. I know this as I went through exactly the same problem with a very low output MC and my phono stage. Output was 0.25mv and the phono stage was good for 64db of gain. 

Sorry, to be clear, I heard a lot more noise through the system as the gain was turned up...in my books that equates to distortion. As the system was asked to amplify the signal, the noise increased tremendously as it began to max out on the gain. Running the preamp gain control at such a high level, meant an increase in noise/ distortion. Far greater loss than what I had gained by going with the lower output cartridge and its supposedly greater abilities due to lower windings of the coil. YMMV.

@lewm. The interaction with my preamp and amp were not an issue, the preamp I utilized at the time had no problem with a cartridge that was spec’d at 0.35mv. I agree there are several issues that can crop up that affect the outcome of the pairing, but IME it isn’t wise to push the gear to the max, just because we can.
I think the warning, and that’s the way I read it, that Rob posts above from Lyra is there for a very good reason. I totally respect that they put that out there, as so many other ultra low output cartridge manufacturers, like Ortofon as an example, don’t bother.
Unfortunately, on paper is rarely going to tell you the whole story...on paper my 0.25 mV cartridge should have worked, which is why I bought it...in reality...not so much!

Ok, here’s my question for the OP and lewm.Why do you think that Lyra and the distributor both recommend a phono stage with at least 65db of gain, vs one that has 64db of gain? Could it be that they know something that lewm doesn’t? 

Once again, it seems that the OP had made up his mind before starting this thread. Good for him, I’m off this thread now.