Phono stage with gain control?

Eldartford, in the 'old days' we called them pre-preamps.

Salut, Bob P.

Eldartford, You are correct...unfortunatly now a days most preamps have no phono stage as you know. I was just thinking that if vinyl is the only source material I listen to then why have a preamp with all that extra electronics. Less is better in my opinion.

Inpepinnovations,,,That was what we called the extra gain stage that went in front of the preamp when using a MC pickup. Nowadays it is no great feat to provide sufficient gain for MC pickups without additional stages. And I don't think they had any gain control (that was in the preamp).

Dean_fuller...If your pickup yields sufficient volume when the power amp is fed directly from the phono stage there is no need for extra gain, which you will just "throw away" using the volume control pot.