Phono preamp with multiple inputs?? Suggestions please!!

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.

I just looked it up. The spec sheet say “5mV in gives 500mV out”, which is a voltage gain of 100, which translates to 40db.

Now let’s assume you have a cartridge that only produces 3 mV of signal voltage. The output from the MF phono would be 300mV. If you have an active linestage in the signal path, it is likely to add at least 8-10 db of gain. 10db means a 3-fold further increase in signal voltage. So now the amplifier sees 0.9V, which is more than adequate for most amplifiers.