Plinius M16 Phono vs. Plinius M14 Separate Phono

Trevor,
If you're new to vinyl, the built in phono card can be a good start. It will allow you to spend your finances on turntable/arm/cartridge first and foremost. I started with a Clase CP-60 w/ built in phono stage, it served me nicely for a couple years. As you get further in, you may wish to go with seperates, as I eventually did. I see you already have seperate amp/preamp. Seperating the phono stage from the preamp should bring about equal sonic value as going with seperate preamp/amp, IMHO.

Cheers,
John

Hi Jmcgrogan2. My analogue rig is already pushing 20k, I don't think I will be upgrading those components anytime soon. Currently I'm having to turn the volume on my pre up past the 12:00 position to get any substantial sound out of the speakers ?? Will a separate phono stage remedy this problem ??

Thx.Trevor.

In my experience different quality phonostages make a big difference. I have the Plinius M14 today which works very nicely in my system with a LAMM LL2 preamp and was a substantial improvement over a previous system (Sonic Frontiers Signature phonstage and Conrad Johnson PV10 preamp) and an even bigger improvement over just using the phono stage in the PV10 preamp. It seems to me that you have an excellent analog front end, possibly beyond the ability of your phonostage to realize all its potential.

FWIW, I see nothing wrong with having to advance your volume control past 12 to get sufficent volume so long as when you get there, even if its at 3 o'clock your not getting to the noise threshold of your preamp. If the tone and dynamics are still holding up, and you are happy with the sound, why change? Lots of folks prefer, and manufacturers support the proposition, that a pre amp will usually sound best at about 10 to 2 o'clock, if for no other reasons that the gradiations in the volume control it self become smaller and more usable.