Phono preamp gain setting

I have to turn the volume up quite high on my linestage to get the right volume.

Excellent, that is exactly what you want.. In an ideal world as you turn it up you should hit the ideal loudness just as you have it all the way up. There is no such thing as having the volume knob too high unless it is too loud at that point.

It will not hurt anything to try different loads.

40 db is too low for that cart.

How do you figure that? The gain needed is function of the total system gain, not just the phono. If you can't get the system to play loud enough all the way up you need more gain. If you can't turn the volume up very far without it getting too loud you need less gain.

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Thanks you for you responses. MY issue is this. I have an Aesthetix Calypso with an 88 step volume control. It starts to get a little noisy at step 50. With some LP I am at the mid to upper 50 level. I think the LP 5.3 is known for being very quite so I thought a little more gain there and a little less in the calypso might be a good combination but did not want to damage anything during the experiment.

Unfortunately you are in a bit of a "no man's land" situation here. Ideally, with that cartridge you'll require about 44 db of gain at the phono stage so you are a bit light and that will compromise you dynamically among other things.

Going to 54 db though is going to, IMO, give you way too much gain probably taking you into overload and resulting in even worse sound quality. You can do it; it's just that it will sound lousy, or at least a lot lousier than if you get your gain right.

If you're committed to the Moon and the Soundsmith (they are supposed to be very good phono stage and cartridge respectively), I'd consider sending the phono stage back to the manufacturer to have them change the gain to 44 db.

Hmmmmmm

A $4,500 preamp that gets noisy around halfway up. That sounds like you have an issue somewhere. Are you sure it is the preamp or is that once you get up to that level you begin to start hearing noise that is coming from the phono stage? Bad tubes in the Calypso? What kind of noise?

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The noise is Kind of a constant shhhhh of hiss sound. It is not real loud at the listening chair at the 50th out of 88 step volume level but you can hear it and it gets progressively louder as the volume level is turned up from there.