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

Emorrisiv, one thing you will find in working with cartridges in general is it is best to keep your connections between the cartridge and the preamp to a minimum.

In the case of an SUT, I think you will also find the cable **after** the SUT to more critical than the one before, as the impedances involved are much higher at the output of the SUT and so more susceptible to cable issues. By comparison, the cable from the cartridge (if the cartridge is properly loaded) is relatively non-critical, especially if you run it balanced, which is possible if you have an SUT.

Atmasphere,

Quick question for a non-technical guy: my SUT is an EAR MC-4 with four RCA inputs and one RCA output. How would I run it balanced?

Thank you.

Brent

MM phono stages introduce capacitance which is completely useless for MC carts. I am not technical enough to assess if capacitance would affect the sound adversely, so I would suggest looking into this and finding more professional advise on a subject.
Highly adjustable (mouse piano) phono stages,imho sound worse than non-adjustable phonos.

Brent, All transformers have a primary and secondary winding (if they only have a primary then they are called autoformers). The windings do not care if one side is at ground or not. So at the input to the SUT, you could lift the winding connection that is at ground, and use an XLR connector, set up with pin 1 (ground) being the arm ground and transformer shield, pin 2 being the + output of the cartridge and the 'normal' input wire to the SUT, and pin 3 being the minus output of the cartridge and the wire that was lifted from ground.

This effects a balanced input, and the output can then be single-ended or balanced, again using the same technique.

Ralph, I DIY'd the cable from the SUT to the mm section of my preamp first before doing any other changes. There was some improvement,but nothing like changing the tonearm wire and the internal wire of the SUT. My next move is to make a new DIY cable from the SUT to the preamp using the Mil-spec. solid silver wire.stay tuned.

e