Phono preamp or SUT for low output moving coil


I have three low output moving coil cartridges

  • Cello Chorale
  • Van den Hul Grasshopper II
  • Zu/ DL-103 Mk II

My phone preamps have phono input (Nagra PL-P and Conrad Johnson PV-7) but do not provide sufficient gain.  Looking for suggestions.   Open to any and all suggestions including stand-alone Phono pre into preamp line, SUT or electronic equivalent of SUT etc.

dcaudio

I’m no expert, but I got help here and learned enough to avoid mistakes.

Phono, anything phono, if possible get return option, it’s a world of ’preferred, not better’, no way of truly knowing how something will sound in your system except by trial.

IF you love your MM Phono Stage, then go for a SUT with some optional settings to fit your current and future variety of LOMC. SUTs are passive, my experience with my Vintage Fidelity Research FRT-4: no sound signature of it’s own. Absolutely no hum.

Just enough gain and proper range of impedance to keep using my Vintage McIntosh mx110z’s Tube MM Phono. It's 4 optional gain/load are linked together: even better would be independent gain and load settings, but that usually pushes the price up.

Any chance you might go to two tonearms? i.e. Playing some Jazz, this one's MONO, use the other arm that's all set up, turn a switch, drop that needle. IF so, a SUT with multiple inputs, front selectable, is great, including PASS for MM so no cable change is needed. 

Entre ET-100 is similar

Often, the numbers make no sense, do your research, ask, I had to find the original specs of my FRT-4 to decipher what gain/impedance the switch positions actually produced

 

SUT Info I posted here

I recently got a Zesto SUT for a Rega Aphelion 2 cart going into EAT Eglow petite hybrid-tube PS. I can either go directly to PS with high gain and get a bit of tube hiss. Or I can add the SUT and get a bit of transformer hum. Both at very low levels and only audible when I crank up pre-amp and put my ear next to speaker. The Zesto ads more body to the music compared to going straight to PS. You can adjust the tonality a bit with the impedence settings both on SUT and PS.