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Do I need a sut?

I purchased an Ortofon MC2000 cart from a fellow A'Goner, it is very low output .05mV, my phono pre is a Herron VTPH-2 which has 69db of gain and my pre is a Herron VTSP-3a(r02) 14db gain.
The cart sounds wonderful, but with such a low gain I have to turn up the volume by quite a lot. If I had, another source at that volume, I wouldn't be able to stand it. With the volume turned up so high I get a fair amount of noise between tracks. 
Should I be looking at an sut or just live with it the way it is? I found an Ortofon at a decent price, it has 24db of gain. Would that be ok to go into the mc input on the VTPH-2? The mm gain is 48db, if I plugged it in there I would only gain 3db(if I'm doing my math correctly) I will also be contacting Keith, but I thought I would ask here too.
Thanks
Jeff
jdodmead
jmcgrogan2's avatar
jmcgrogan2
6,346 posts
 
Hi Jeff,

It’s probably best to ask Keith, or wait for one of our more knowledgeable members like Ralph or Al to chime in.

That said, I believe that your numbers are correct, that SUT would give you 3 dB more gain than the ones built into your Herron.
Still, I believe that any SUT is designed to be plugged into MM inputs, though I could be wrong. Most MC stages are simply MM stages with SUT’s built into the preamp. So I don’t think you should plug a SUT into another SUT.

Please let me know what you find out. I’m sure there are SUT’s out there with more than 24 dB of gain.
I have seen some with 30 dB of gain, like Bob’s Sky 30:
http://www.bobsdevices.com/Sky-30-CineMag-1-15-1-30.html

Good luck!
jperry
1,408 posts
 
I agree with @jmcgrogan2 that you should not run the transformer into the MC input on your Herron phono stage

From the review in Stereophile. The T-2000 transformer has 36 db of gain.

"At a ridiculous 0.05mV (50µV), there is no preamp with high-enough gain to accept this directly. In fact, there are probably zero head amps made that are quiet enough to be used with this cartridge, either, and that includes the MC inputs on preamplifiers (footnote 1). You must use a transformer and few of those out there are going to have enough voltage step-up for the MC-2000, You are pretty much obliged to use Ortofon's own T-2000—a veritable brick of a transformer, weighing almost 8 lbs!—which is (naturally) designed to be used with this cartridge."

folkfreak's avatar
folkfreak
1,149 posts
 
This is the SUT you should look for - as you can see it offers a high 35dB of additional gain which would give you what you need. 
https://www.ortofon.com/media/15289/mc-2000-t-2000-transformer-p2.jpeg

Unfortunately these are rather pricey but a SUT builder such as Bobs or MFA can build you a suitable SUT

https://www.hifishark.com/search?q=Ortofon+t+2000

As @jmcgrogan2 notes any SUT must be used into a 47k ohm MM input

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