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Beginnners question - Phono stage

I am kind of new at this hobby and have a dumb question. Why is it that when I listen to my CD player or tuner, the volume control on my amp is usually set at approximately 40 out of 100 and it is plenty loud. However, when I am listening to vinyl on my turntable, I have to crank up the volume control to 70 to get the same sound level out of my system. I have an AR turntable with a MM cartridge. I tried another turntable with a MC cartridge (making sure "MC" was selected on my phono stage) and it was even worst...I had to crank the volume control to 80! My amp is a Pathos Classic One MKII, a Musical Fidelity XRayV3 CD player, Linn Pekin tuner, Totem Hawks and an MF XLPS phono stage. Is this normal or do I have a problem ? Is this possibly linked to the phono stage itself, cabling or simply due to a cartridge/phono stage mismatch ? Thanks for your help.
sympaticonorm
lugnut
1,190 posts
 
Obviously your phono stage doesn't have enough gain to match the high voltage output of a CDP. If you are pleased with the sound and don't have any unacceptable circuitry noise then you are fine. It is common and may not be a problem at all.
nsgarch's avatar
nsgarch
2,517 posts
 
In addition to what Lugnut said, you might check the owner's manual or with the manufacturer to see if you can make an internal adjustment to increase the gain on your MF XLPS.
photon46
1,008 posts
 
Your phono stage multiplies your cartridges' signal a certain fixed amount, so the volume level from your phono input varies according to the output of your cartridge. Most MM cartridges output somewhere between 4 to 6.5/7 mv, so that can account for quite a large variation in where you need to adjust volume. When I went from a Goldring 1042 to a Grado Sonata, I had to turn up the volume quite a bit more. I doubt that you have any cause for concern. Using your volume control @ 70% should be well within it's range of optimal operation. Be more concerned about the opposite problem, too much gain. That potentially causes sub-optimal system signal to noise ratio. Some pre-amps allow the user to adjust volume for each input to alleviate this minor annoyance.
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