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Low volume on turntable??

Hi everyone, so I’m new to vinyl and have a lot to learn but I just hooked up a my first turn table, and with my preamp at maximum volume, and amp at full gain, it was still veryy quiet and had no depth/bass. The turntable is an old Denon DP-31L that I just installed a new cartridge in (AT-95E) --->Cary Audio AES SE-3 preamp---->McIntosh MC2125--->Klipsch RP-5’s. The system sounds magnificent running .wav vinyl rips with a Monarchy DIP upsampler--> Emotiva XDA-1 DAC in between my comp and the preamp, so there must be something wrong with either the unit, or how i hooked it up (basic built in RCA to preamp, with the integrated ground wire running to the Mcintosh chassis). On the plus side the ultra-quiet music has no hums, or background distortion whatsoever, even at full volume.

Any advice or thoughts would be much appreciated! Cheers
hockey4496
marktomaras
544 posts
 
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.
hockey4496 OP
104 posts
 
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...
hockey4496 OP
104 posts
 
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...
swampwalker's avatar
swampwalker
5,138 posts
 
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.  



mofimadness's avatar
mofimadness
4,992 posts
 
Swamp beat me to it. What he said is correct. Also, the preamp out will work, but you will have to use the volume control on the Sony to raise the output level.

The signal coming from the "tape out" is fixed and cleaner, so that would be best sound.

Since the Sony is an A/V receiver, you might have to get into the menu setting and tell it what you are doing.
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