The fact is that, say, Ortofon and Fidelity research, made SUT's
for nearly each MC they produced. It is also a fact that the most
tube pres use SUT's for the added amplification (to the MM stage).
The question is if the later ''transistor pres'' compensated for their
weakness in the 80is. Anyway a good MC is expensive while an
combo of MM pre and SUT is not or need not to be. My assumption
is that a good MM pre is not difficult to produce and should be
consequntly not (very) expensive. BTW I have two systems in one
of which I use Basis Exclusive without SUT's and the other , Jasmine
LP 2 with improved MM stage for which I settled on Denon AU-
S1 (3>40 Ohms). I am very happy with this Denon and feel no
need at all to switch to the MC input .