Turntable volume help


Hello. I recently made the dive into vinyl & having an issue. It seems I have crank my amp into the 90-100% range to get decent volume out of it. I got an old Pioneer PL-514 from a friend, had it professionally cleaned & set up & replaced the busted cartridge with a Shure M97xE. Sounded awesome the store. Brought it home, hooked it up to a Rega Fono Mini into my Jolida 502b, and it sounds awesome. Only issue is the volume thing. Is there something I am doing wrong? Perhaps my amp isn't powerful enough? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated as am I really loving my vinyl, I'd just like it louder! Thank you very much in advance!
geoffj85
Viridian, I fully agree with your post. I believe the digital era is sacrificing music quality for volume. A great example is all of the digi pak remasters of great classic rock albums you'd see at Best Buy & such. I blindly bought a copy of the Police "Zenyatta Mondatta" because it was cheap. Sounded terrible.

But I grew up with CD's & I like my music loud, so there lies my issue. I love the life & dynamics in vinyl that you just cannot achieve listening to a cd or mp3. I would just enjoy it more at a louder volume.

Has anyone else experienced newer pressed vinyls seem quieter than new ones? I recently got some Mars Volta albums that seem really quiet compared to a lot of older stuff that I have.
I have to crank the level for LPs using a pretty standard output SS preamp (Kavent S-33) with a Cambridge 640P phono pre...balanced out into a Jolida 502P. That said, it's the same level adjustment difference as my SS power amp had and I mute when LPs finish anyway. I would worry if I ran out of knob (a highly technical term) on the preamp, but it's still clean. The Adventures of Knob Turner.
My initial thought is that the Rega is at fault. Can you bring it to a friend or a store to hear it in another setting? Where are you located?
09-11-12: Geoffj85
I ended up ordering a jolida jd-9. Hopefully this should resolve my volume dilemma & get better tone in the process.
Looks like a good choice, in terms of the specs and based on this review. It should certainly resolve the volume issue. And your 96 db speakers should be able to reach sound pressure levels in the area of 105 to 110 db at typical listening distances, with 60 watts, so I don't think you'll be running out of amplifier power as a result of introducing the additional gain.

The JD9's provision of adjustable load capacitance should also be a useful feature, to optimize frequency response flatness in the treble region.

Regards,
-- Al