MC phono stage without transformer?

Uh-oh!! Cable war alert. All hands to battle stations. All hands to battle stations. Cable war alert. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill!!!!

Plinko, I am in a state of confusion...still trying to wiggle my way out of the maze. Keep the thread going, I thoroughly enjoy the debates :)

The thing that puzzles me in all of this is in absolute terms, how much performance can be obtained with a very low-output MC cartridge that requires a step-up transformer and/or a high-gain transformerless phono stage, as compared to a medium-gain MC cartridge that's happy with a wide variety of medium-gain tube phono stages. All things being equal in the phono section, are .1-.3mV MC cartridges inherently superior to .4mv and higher cartridges, more cost-effective, or both?

As an aside, the best medium-gain MC cartridge that I've had in my system is a .5mV Helikon. I'm curious whether a high-gain transformer-less phono stage(with say 70db gain) can achieve similar or greater performance with a relatively inexpensive cartridge with output in the .2-.3mV range.

Dear Plinko, To be truthful, I probably could not afford a new MP1, so some years ago I bought mine used at a rather low price, because it had been badly abused by a series of owners, but it had been originally built with many expensive extras, like an all-Vishay S102 attenuator. I then spent about a year completely rebuilding it back to the latest MP1 spec, with Atma-sphere assistance and with a few twists of my own thrown in in recent years. (Ralph is a really great guy.) I learned a great deal in the process. Nevertheless, I refer back to my first post on this thread: I think a new MP1 or Raul's preamp or the Vacuum State and a few other full function preamps at around the $10k price point are relative bargains, because you do get such high performance and versatility for the buck, at a time when there are some outlandishly priced separate line and phono stages on the market that go way over $10K.

Lew, I would agree. If one wants value, look at the full function preamps. I moved away from separates and bought one myself.