George is consistently pushing these passive threads for that exact reason.
And for someone who uses the same high gain Herron phono stage as this one.
Here in case you missed it is this users report on utilising all the gain from the Herron source, instead of reducing with the AR Ref5se pre so it can just make it back up again with it’s gain stage.
The owner of the Herron said the Lightspeed passive pre wins out over his Audio Research REF-5se and older Pass X1. He’s now getting a battery for the Lightspeed and will hopefully do an update here on that.
"It sounds fantastic !!
I’m sure you have heard this before. I have done preliminary listening, approx 2x 4hours sessions.
With the Gryphon Amp, all things considered, I preferred LSA to the ARC ref5se and my older Pass X1.
Impedance match seems fine with Herron & Gryphon, no perceived roll offs, lack of dynamics etc."
Gain structure he has.
Lyra Etna SL 0.25mV > Herron 64db > Lightspeed 0db > Gryphon Antillion input sens. for full output 0.97v (30db) > Wilson Sasha 90db
HisTurntable
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c5/da/d3/c5dad306fea0f6cdda772d0ed07c2425.jpg Cheers George