Low volume on turntable??

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.

This was copied from the user manual you linked:

• The analog audio signals of the currect function is output from the REC OUT jacks. When you use AUDIO SPLIT to assign a digital audio input (for example, MD/DAT OPTICAL), the analog audio signals of the assigned audio (for example, MD/ DAT ANALOG) is output.

• When 5.1CH INPUT is selected, audio signals are not output from REC OUT jacks.

  
  

  Hope this helps/makes sense.

So you think I'll need to split the tape input to look to phono for the signal?

Hockey, I think you may be taking this jury rig too far.  Look at NAD phono preamps on eBay, there are a couple for less than $100...  The one here on audiogon is a better option, 4th generation, for $150

It works! Used the Tape Out to the Cary preamp, turntable plugged into Sony phono. The Sony doesn’t control the volume at all, only the preamp and McIntosh gain change it, so I left the Sony volume at 0, speakers turned "off", and input on Phono Direct Analog. So it would seem I am using the phono stage only, probably not much different than a really cheap stand alone. It sounds pretty good, granted I only have 1 record to try, so I can’t really say to much if it’s better than the digital im used to, but I can say it’s not worse. It’s a little better than a good 16 bit 44hz .FLAC, but not as good as some 24bit 96hz .wav vinyl rips. With that being said I need to fix a couple things like the fact the turntable is sitting on a yoga mat on the floor, and has a 3’ female-to-male RCA cord extension to reach the receiver.

New problem to tackle: the tone arm doesn’t seem to track properly I think? every 10-30 seconds the music gets all distorted for about 1-5 seconds, and sounds like it’s in slow motion with a helium voice.

is this likely to be the new head I installed not being perfectly aligned or could it have something to do with the spinning platform? I did calibrate the counter weight and anti-skate appropriately for the new cartridge, and have the cartridge screwed onto the head unit in the same spot as the original, so it should be within a millimeter of the one I took off. I was going to use this protractor but didn't know how accurate/necessary it was: http://www.vinylengine.com/ve_downloads/index.php?stupid_protractors.pdf

thoughts??

thanks all!!