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
I think that's great advice, but unfortunately I'm stretching it big time if I were to spend $100....my wife would end me if she knew I spent the $38 haha. I will keep that particular cartridge in mind though when I can afford something a little nicer.

with that said, what would you have in mind with my budget under $90-ish?
Shure M97xE around $70
Ortofon 2M Red around $100

These (2) IMHO, are better than the AT100E.  I have the AT95E on one of my tables and it's a great little performer.  Not sure if the AT100E is really a step up.
If it makes any difference I like classical (piano, cello, violen), classic rock (CCR, Clapton, pink Floyd, Beatles, Dave Mathews early stuff etc.) and anything with good vocals (rich raspy type voices like Adele). One thing I know they all have in common is a richness with the sound, if that makes sense? I hate nothing more music that hearing a song that should have a deep full sounding cello that has no feel/hollow.

Does that help narrow it down?
Hey, Hickey-That's great.  Using a good cartridge protractor will help your set-up.  Unless the new cart is the same as the old one, that setup is not likely to be close to optimum. Even if it was the same, fractions of a mm can make a big difference.