Pre-Preamp?

My SP-11 is 33 years old so how much is that in pre-amp years? LOL.

@daveaj255 The thing is, when electronics get that old, its prudent to have the power supply filter capacitors replaced to maintain reliability. They tend to fail slowly and its common for them to take the power transformer with them at some point, which would be a really expensive repair if you can even get the part! So it you plan to keep the preamp get the power supply serviced. Also make sure you instruct the technician doing the work to be careful to get values as close to original as possible- the regulators in the SP-10 and SP-11 were unstable to say the least- its not a good idea to do something that might set them off.

Keep that SP11! Don't replace it with a Ch*nese - made preamp! Have a competent tech replace some power supply caps, if need be! It already has an excellent phono stage!

And if you need more gain for your mc cartridge, then get a good mc step up transformer - which I do and recommend!

The best mc SUT I have (of the five) is probably the Quicksilver (Mike Sanders).

daveaj255

Get the superb 60db high gain Herron VTPH-2A and get a preamp like this with little or no gain.
Such as the Schiit Freya, it has the best mechanical volume control made remote, xlr or se inputs and outputs, and you can choose between active solid state, active tube or passive operation, whatever you think sounds best in your system.
If you don’t like it after 15 days you can send it back.
https://www.schiit.com/products/freya

Cheers George