Phono preamp or SUT for low output moving coil

sls883, well you have been using the combo and are clearly thrilled with the results. So there can be no greater endorsement.

The internal impedance of your cartridge is 8 ohms, and you have said it works excellently, the DL103 is 40 ohms and the Hana E series and original S series are 30 ohms, which I would think would be too high. I believe the new version 2 of the S series has a similar impedance to your cartridge.

I dont know if there is an exact point at which a combo would become incompatible, but conceptually the transimpedance stage presents a dead short to the cartridge. Since it is current based, maximum signal transfer will occur with a matched load, ie zero ohms internal cartridge impedance, so it would appear the lower the better, at least in theory. But as we all know in this game, theory is hardly the be all and end all.

@viridian Thank you for the information.  Good to know. 

It's very difficult to set a firm upper limit for the internal impedance of an LOMC cartridge that you want to work "well" with a current driven phono stage. This is because each brand of current driven phono stage will present a different input impedance, which is always going to be above zero ohms, the ideal value for current drive. But you cannot have a true zero ohm input impedance, because that is a short circuit to ground. So each matchup between cartridge and current drive phono stage is different in terms of loading the stage. A decent rule of thumb is to use cartridges with internal impedance less than ~12 ohms, and then it's trial and error. (I don't use the term "transimpedance" because that implies that all matches do work fine, and that is not my experience, nor does it conform to the facts as I perceive them.)

well, if you like your onboard phono section, get an SUT or two or three.

if not, how much you wanna spend on phono amplification altogether?

Viridian, As i see it, and as I just wrote it, yes, in theory the current driven phono stage presents a dead short to the cartridge, but in fact it cannot, because if it did, you would have a fancy mute switch. There's the rub with current drive.