Low volume on turntable??

 I think with Sony means by that is that it does not make any adjustments in the digital domain. Perhaps you have some fancy controls on the Sony that would allow you to correct for certain issues. It could do this by modifying the digital signal.   I'm guessing the analog direct option prevents the Sony from converting the analog signal to digital.

You can certainly try it, but I do believe you may be double preamplifiying the signal, if  my suspicions are correct.   If you do try this, clearly put the volume control to absolute minimum on both the Sony and the Cary!  Slowly raise the volume, perhaps to 9 o'clock on the Sony, and then carefully raise the volume on the Cary just a bit.

it is possible to overload a preamplifier. I've done this with my phono preamplifier into my stereo preamplifier. With the gain  set too high on the phono stage,  The musical peaks were full of distortion - scratchy poppy sounds.  I dropped the gain on my phono stage,  and problem solved.

 If you give it a shot, let me know what happens! It's possible that you can turn the Sony volume halfway up or all the way up, and then use the Cary to  do the rest, and possibly only required to Cary volume Control to be set quite low. Just be careful and gradual with those volume control knobs!

Mesh,  excellent idea! If the tape out is line level and not preamplified at all, that could work. But I also agree, this is a short-term solution so the original poster could play records today and not a long-term solution at all.

So I tried leaving the turntable to the phono input and using "tape out" to the preamp and no sound, then I tried plugging it into the "tape in" with outs still in "tape out", and no sound either.... I think I'll try next leaving the turntable plugged into phono, with outputs plugged into the "pre out" and run that to the Cary. I'll leave the Sony volume super low with mode set to analog direct...

Should the "tape in" work with a turntable normally? I would speculate not bc there is a phono input too, otherwise Sony would have only made one phono/tape RCA input instead of 2 separate ones for each...

Hockey- If you look in the manual for the Sony on page 50 you will see instructions for recording.  Follow those but where it says tape recorder or tape machine, think "any analog (RCA) input on the Cary".  You will need to set the Sony to the phono source, and the Cary to whatever source you plug the tape out RCAs into.  The only other thing you will need to make sure that there is not a tape monitor switch on the Sony. If there is, and after you make the connections I just outlined, if you still have no sound, try switching the tape monitor switch to the other choice.