Phono pre amp

6 months ago I heard Sound Quest prototype of the SQ PH-1t
MC / MM Phono Pre- Amplifier with variable gain. Able to drive the amp(s) directly and supposedly works with any cartridge. It was pretty good for the asking price ($1600) and what it had to offer. I did not compare it to other phono-stages and haven't heard it since. With that in mind, audition but judge for yourself.

Mariusz

It's worth experimenting with this, but I'll bet anything you'll be missing some midbass and low end. In this situation, you're essentially running your phono stage as a passive preamp. Even if you ideally match the output impedance of your phono stage to the input impedance of your amp, I bet you'll lose the fullness that a linestage brings to the picture. I've had several excellent passives and this has always been the case. Ralph Karsten of Atma-Sphere fame has an excellent explanation for this phenomena in this forum:

Are passive preamps better?

Art Audio has one, but beware of the issue Mingles brought up.

I am with Swampwalker and Mingles.

But other choices are Aesthetix IO (has volume control option) or why not get the matching Hovland Preamp with phono built in? Nagra PLL another good preamp with phono built in choice...