Best SUT For Van Den Hul Crimson Stradivarius cartridge

Hey I'm late to the game on this one but I have a customer who was using a Lyra Etna (0.56mv) with a 1:20 into his VPS100.  He wanted a bit more system gain so he went for a 1:40 and things went south quickly.  The highs got ragged and the sound brash and he thought the SUT was broken.  Since there is not much you can do to "break" a SUT I met up with him and put the setup on the test bench.  A 1kHz sine wave was fin in both setups but moving up to 10kHz showed what was happening.  The 10Khz into the 1:20 showed a slight increase of higher harmonics and moving to the 1:40 showed a dramatic increase which nicely coincided with what he was hearing.  

All phono stages distort at frequencies first and the onset of this distortion tends to be rather abrupt.  The nature of it is quite dissonant and it gradually shows up on dynamic peaks of hot recordings so it is elusive to track down.  I find that the current trend of high output (0.5mV-1mV+) cartridges and the typical high ratio SUT's do not play well together and a 1:26 into your VPS 100 is not a good combination.  This is not an issue with the SUT of the phono, it is an issue pairing the two with a cartridge with 1mV output.  Feed it with a cartridge with a 0.25mV output and it would be a beautiful combination.

dave

I heard magic today!!
I set up Ikeda Kai with MC26L, VPS100 and used smartractor and Analogmagik to setup the cartridge.
It was pure magic.
The best setup I heard so far!! (my sound memory is not that great!!)
I would like to thank @fsonicsmith for letting me listen to his system which encouraged me to go for that magic. I had listened to a 1000K Greg Beron system 1 yr ago. 
Analogmagik really helped me to setup accurately.
I used my DIY Cables using helix geometry (I compared mine to high priced cables three different brands in total in 5-20K range), I don't want to reveal names and step on anyone's toes.
I made DIY sound absorbers and diffusers.
I leaned so many things in the last 3 yrs from all your help in the forums, articles, etc.
My VanDen Hul crimson is in for tuneup and I will report once it returns in a few weeks.

Great news that you found the magic.  The Kai with its 0.19mV output is a good match for your particular SUT / Phono combo.  In order to hear the VDH in a similar situation you would need to use it with something like a 1:5 ratio SUT.  The sound you had with the VDH and the 1:26 was simply the phono stage being overloaded at the input and is not the sound of the cartridge.

dave

I heard magic today!!
I set up Ikeda Kai with MC26L, VPS100 and used smartractor and Analogmagik to setup the cartridge.
It was pure magic.
The best setup I heard so far!! (my sound memory is not that great!!)
I would like to thank @fsonicsmith for letting me listen to his system which encouraged me to go for that magic.

I am thrilled for you and for me. For me that you were not too pissed off at my dismissive post above. I suspect that Dave of Intactaudio is right about what went wrong with your previous attempt at using an SUT but we still have no insight as to what went wrong with all of your previous attempts to get good sound. The alignment only accounts for the very last 5-10% and as I have told you many times-most times you can slam your cartridge all the way forward and as long as you have VTF, azimuth, and SRA correct, you will get very good sound. So forgive me if I doubt that the alignment software is what got you over the hurdle. 
I continue to think that your Cary preamp must be part of your previous problems. I continue to think that the IC's from phono stage to phono pre must be top-tier. You may be getting great sound now but how will you be feeling about the sound two months from now with continued listening? 
At the level of price you are working with it is a shame not to use component synergy to your advantage rather than working against it. 
But truly, I am still thrilled for you that your efforts have finally begun to pay off. 

Kanchi, I don’t know why this is some sort of revelation. Even you in your opening post suggested that the MC26 might be a bad match for your new cartridge. I’m glad Dave and fsonic joined in to nudge you into proving it for yourself. The pathway for a permanent cure, if you want to continue to use the high output vdh, is now laid out before you.