which is better ? MC phono stage or MM+step-up ?

Dear Nandric, sorry, I missed your question in late november.
Yes, if you want to avoid having to mess (if you strive for the best possibly, you've got to try (i.e.: mess around with...) with SUTs, the safe side is to go for MOMC (medium output moving coil) with 0.5 mV or more.

In general - if perfectly grounded and perfectly shielded (both is easier than widely expected) SUT can be hum free. Take care of the transformers shielding - outer and inner... - and the way it connects to the signal ground and whether the tonearm/armboard/plinth is grounded too.
I still see LOMC with low source impedance and corresponding inductance as one part of an essential team with a matching (impedance/inductance relative to step-up ratio) SUT.
Cheers,
D.

Dan I am sure that there are excellent jfet phono sections, but if you had a tube preamp and wanted tube pre/phono sound,than it might not be what some would want.A SUT allows for working with either.

cheers

e

The Alaap IS a tubed phono and pre, with a jfet MC stage.

I had my phono stage heavily modded by Bill Thalmann. We decided to go with an EAR MC-4 SUT for the MC gain, so the phono stage is run in MM mode (all tube), bypassing the JFET in the MC portion of the signal path.

The result of SUT + tubes is a much more musical presentation with a lower noise floor. Bill reminded me that CJ's top phono stage has a SUT built-in, so it runs SUT + tubes in the signal path.

For the dollar invested, a "quiet" tube sound with lots of quality and flexibility.

We've specifically avoided using SS input in our tube phono section. Instead, we created the first fully-differential phono stage (1989) as a means to keep noise down. I've tried a variety of SUTs (and never had a hum problem, FWIW).

SUTs do offer a great noise floor, but at a slight loss of detail and musicality. We did everything we could to make sure they were loaded correctly- BTW if not properly loaded the SUT will express the inter-winding capacitance rather than the turns ratio- IOW loading is **essential**. I am sure that with some preamps, the SUT is an important part of getting a LOMC to work, but with our preamps as longs as the cartridge is over 0.2mV going direct sounds better.