Phono preamp with multiple inputs?? Suggestions please!!

@elliottbnewcombjr 

Hi Elliott,  

Most gimballed arms are designed to have minimum friction around the center of their range of movement.  

Bill

The Musical Fidelity M6X Vinyl has 3 inputs. It may check the desired boxes in your search. No remote though. All settings are switchable on the front panel. Quite nice. Discrete solid state. Works well feeding my hybrid preamp. 

wturkey op, everybody

Phono Stage: Remote, no true advantage I can think of. (let me know real advantages anyone needs phono or input remote for)

I suppose Phono remote control could seem to be a benefit for comparing the sound of a variety of impedance’s, however I have found it is not an instant comparison, and to compare the same passage you have to walk up, lift/move/drop the stylus into the same ’start’, so remote advantage is not real.

remote to compare cartridges: IF arms are on the same TT: you can have all tonearms dropped, playing, choose which arm/cartridge is active by remote, except there are volume differences, and different impedances to change. that’s also not instant, or the same passage.

comparing impedances or cartridges here, all 3 arms down, same start, thus same passage nearly simultaneously: we select specific passages, i.e. Eurythmics, Sweet Dreams: Dave Stuart’s electronic sounds/separation; Annie Lennox, this passage and/or that one; Footsteps fading on the last track.

for each cartridge: adjust the volume/impedance (or change to PASS for MM): listen, like shampoo, repeat.

I make temporary pencil marks around my volume knob, not perfect, but near enough, thus volume is adjusted before you hear _____________? You cannot see the pencil marks to change volume remotely, so do it while you are 'up there'.

Same thing about preamp remote input selection: nearly worthless IMO, you are gonna be ’up there’ changing media, volume differences exist even when comparing Streaming/CD/LP .... streaming, each track might be a different volume compared to the general volume of a CD or LP.

I’d much rather have remote balance, a true advantage to instantly hear the effects of adjustments. My Chase RLC-1 gives me that, the primary reason I use it.

wturkey

Musical Fidelity M6X Vinyl is very impressive, features I definitely want, and the price is very good IMO. I Want One.

Except I don’t. My biggest concern: it’s MM sensitivity is 5mv, which I find too high. Checking my cartridges, and data of a lot of cartridges I have researched: Only one: discontinued AT440ml had 5,0 mv output. 19 others, mostly currently available that I have noted specs on, and all my active ones are 4.0mv or less.

My McIntosh mx110z preamp, and so many others have phono sensitivity around 3mv.

Minimum impedance is 25 ohms and adjustable up to 1.2k ohms, I would prefer lower than 25, for some difficult MC cartridges (meaning combo of signal strength/coil impedances requires separate settings, some need very low impedance).

The important number is not gain in mV, which only refers to some ideal setup, but phono gain in db. If MM phono gain is 40db or higher, and if the linestage adds 8-10db additional gain, and if the input sensitivity of the amplifier is 1mV or less for full output, then any system that works well with a 5mV cartridge will work just as well with 3mV or even less, depending on the degree to which the above parameters are even slightly exceeded. So for me the question would be what is the gain of the MM phono section in the Musical Fidelity unit.