Shelter 501 II owners: how long is the break-in?

I know people are going to yell, but the problem is with your preamp not having enough gain on the MC...it's rated at 60db for MC......the Shelter has a very low output and you should be using a phono preamp with higher gain for MC...more like 70-75db. The Jolida JD9 has that kind of gain, as do others. I auditioned and bought the Shelter and it's fantastic on my Amadeus TT.

Output of the 501 Mk II is 0.5 mV at 1kHz 5cm/sec., certainly not "very low" but rather medium output. 60 dB gain should be sufficient as long as noise is not excessive and input impedance loading is correct.

Shelter dealer.

Sheesh..knew this was going to happen. OK, I am reading directly from the "Technical Data Model 501 II" sheet that came with my 501.

It is rated at 0.4mV at 1kHz 5cm/sec

It goes onto say that "Because output voltage is low, step-up trans or head-amplifier must be used to strengthen the signal".....

When I ran the Shelter with a phono pre-amp of 60db or less gain, I felt the cartridge sounded "soft" in the bass and lacked any punch throughout. I also had my dealer recommend to me to use a phono pre-amp with ample gain.

This may or may not solve the problem with bobandcathi.....but I suspect it is.

I hope there is someone here that has ran a Shelter with a Mcintosh preamp with good results....that would happily prove me wrong. Until then, I stand by my convictions on this. I have ran my Shelter with 4 different phono preamps and I talked extensively to two different dealers in California and an experienced technician who has a lot of experience with Shelters....and the message I got was pretty consistent. It's a great cartridge, it is low output and needs ample db gain on the phono preamp to come alive.