Need to turn volume all the way up with cartridge

What John says. You can also stick with your present phono stage and get a cartridge with a higher output, say, one with 2.5 mV.

My appolagies for breaking into this thread. I have the same problem! A phono stage with gain of 60 and a cartridge with 0.5 output. My stage is loaded at 47k which I assumed was for MM cartridges. What do I need in the way of a transformer to correct this. I read Jmcgrogan2's thread but it's a bit over my head. Suggestions please ....

I know whatever John said is (practically) bible when it comes to vinyl.

Contact John at bentaudio and discuss your situation (he makes a very, and I mean very good SUT) for under $1K I believe.

Gain sounds okay, Zenieth, but loading seems off. Did the manufacturer of the cartridge suggest 47k? Try the the KAB website. They have lots of helpful advice and a preamp calculator. Plug in some numbers. The Cartridge Database is a good info source, too. Good luck.

Calbrs03, I have a BAT VK300x integrated with the phono card. They told me that the card was factory set at 47K. The card has a switch for MM/MC on it. The gain was 45/60. I'm tring to use a Lyra Skala cartridge. They say the impedance can be between 100/47k ohms. That doesn't make sense to me. I wonder if it's possible that I have the gain switch on the card in wrong position? Would I get sound at all at 45 db's of gain? I'll check out your suggestions.