New Audio Technica ART9XA Up and Running.....

Not sure I'm the right guy to help here, but I switched out preamp MC section resistors to get to 65db gain to handle the XA.  Avanti1960, the OP, is using 64db.

The XA is a very low output cartridge (.2mv) because is it air coil.  You should do some further research to see if 60db gain is adequate to get the best out of the XA.  And maybe Avanti1960 will add some wisdom here.

@beans57    
60 db with the .2mv output of the xa would be lower than i would run.  that amount of gain is minimum for a .3mv cartridge.   currently using 64db with the xa and that is the min i would recommend but 64db gets full performance out of it, no compromises or anything lacking.  
i would recommend the art9 xi or the xa with a sut.  

Many thanks, folks  . . . . .

I may even at this point look to upgrade my phono pre as much as I didn't want to so as to be a bit 'future proof' on cartridge selection 'and' permitting me to try out that XA cartridge.
We'll see . . . .

Beans, I'm wondering if you can speak with Clearaudio and find out if there are any MC output resistors that could be changed to bump your output up past 64 dB.  Or maybe there are some users out there who have done this.

Here's the thing: My Classe Six was "fixed" at 57 dB but the unit came with a slew of loose resistors the owner could use to change the output in 2 dB increments.  When I bought the XA, I changed out 2 resistors (one each channel) to bump the gain to 65 dB.  There were other resistor choices that would reach as high as 75 dB!

No idea if this would be possible with your Clearaudio, but asking around and researching are cheap.  BTW, so are resistors.

" Beans, I'm wondering if you can speak with Clearaudio and find out if there are any MC output resistors "

I have a query in with them the past day with 'just' that question.
Well, that and some discrepancies in 'manual's for this one off phono pre.  Most notably is that there is an online manual that states that the XLR outputs of this unit (there are RCA and XLR outputs) has a gain of 66 dB vs the 60 dB of the RCAs.  And compounding this is that my own manual that I dug out today (a very slight single page offering) specifies 58 dB for the outputs vs 60 dB in every other doc I could find on these i.e. so no differentiation between RCA and XLR out.
Game them the S/N of the unit and asked for clarification on the specs and whether an upgrade possible.
Thanks