I'm a total newbee to all this... Phono vs Preamp?


Ok, I realize that before a turntable's signal gets amplified it needs to (1) get EQ'd and (2) be brought up to Line level. I currently use a decent receiver that has a built in Phono Stage. My turntable also has a built in preamp, but I don't use it.

I've been looking at getting a decent tube preamp to fool around with, but I want to get this straight before I buy anything:
If I hook my turntable into a preamp that does not have a phono-stage, can I still hook that into the Phono section of my receiver? Or will that be too much gain?

Could I switch on the preamp on my table, or would that be too much gain?

Or would I need to get a phono stage on it's own?

Let me know, I'm a tad confused.
dhaskell
Yes, way too much! The phono section of your receiver is set up for seeing an output of a few millivolts. The preamp output is in volts. You can hook the phono stage on your table into your preamp and then into a line level [tuner , etc.] input on your receiver. If you do this use the tape out outputs on the preamp as this bypasses the volume control on the preamp. My advice would be not to do it, the improvement in sound is uncertain. I would wait until I was ready to make a major upgrade to the whole system. If your receiver has a" preamp in" set of inputs I would consider it, otherwise you will be using 2 preamps in series and the one in the receiver will be the weak link.
I'd suggest just getting a pre-amp with a suitable phono stage built in or separate.

The main thing would be to know what kind of cartridge is used on the phono, ie ceramic, moving magnet, Moving Coil (hi or low output)?

If it is ceramic, I'd start off by considering a new table and cartridge and go from there.