Phono stage for 0.2mv cartridge?


  I am looking for a quality phono stage with at least 72db of gain.  During this last year I obtained a Canary MC10 which sounds beautiful but I am somewhat volume limited and listen at such high volume control settings that tube rush has become an issue.  At 69.5db of gain I hoped that the Canary would work out but...
  Most of the popular stages like the Herron and the Manlely Steelhead seem to run in the 66-70db gain range.  Reviewers seem to routinely report on these phono stages using cartridges with low outputs but that runs contrary to my experience so far.  Any suggestions appreciated.

Bill
wbs
FWIW, I have three tube phone stages, an Aural Thrills Audio Serenade rated at 60db of gain, an Allnic HE1500se II rated @ 66db of gain and a Wall Audio Opus 120 rated @ 70db of gain and in the same system with no changes other than the phone stages the system plays louder at the same settings in the opposite order as you would think from the output rating by the manufacturers. No way I can explain that, will leave that for those that can, but there seems to be more at play here than that rating in output db by the builders. Enjoy the music
Tooblue.
Now that is most interesting.
I had always assumed the difference was in the downstream equipment the phono interacted with that gave rise to variations in perceived" loudness" for same gain.

Obviously more at play inside the various phonos than just the published gain specs!
@uberwaltz, really surprised me as I started trying all three phone stages to decide on the one to cull/sell, as you might remember I was a bit leary of the Wall Audio @ 70db of gain as I had no issues with enough gain to begin with. Even used the same albums and monitored with a hand held SPL meter. Enjoy the music
@tooblue 

Was the cartridge loading the same for all three phono stages? If not, that might explain what you were hearing.
tooblue
well at least we know you aint going to lose your shirt if you decide to sell the wall audio unit!
lmao