Melos MA220 tube phono stage

Melos was a very good high quality component. I used to know George but that was 30 years ago....he was sick then...I'm not so sure he's still around. After such a long time, I wonder if your unit is playing well.

Some bogus company took over Melos after George Melos. It was located in Las Vegas, not inappropriately. They hornswaggled several Melos owners on incompetent and overpriced repairs, etc. I don't know whether they still control the brand name, but beware of them. One of my friends sent them an amplifier that was first returned broken, then sent back to them, then not returned to him at all, ever. Albeit, this was at least 10 years ago.

Lew, IIRC the owner/repairman of that operation died and thereafter the customer equipment remaining on-site evaporated. I believe it was called "Melos Audio Restoration" and was unaffiliated with the original Melos. I had a nice MA333G that fortunately never required repairs.

Well I finally got the Melos MA220 coupled with a Music Hall MM7 running the original Goldring Eroica H MC Cartridge. I have to say it can sound quite nice at times! I still trying to figure the unit out. Not sure why it has 2 sets of outputs. One person said to run to 2 preamps. I guess its input is for only a High Output MC since it appears to work and there is no switch for Low Output cartridges. I have to gain it down quite a bit with my preamp gain adjustment to avoid clipping. I have not figured out what effect if any the load switching that steps from 47k Ohm to 1 Ohm does. So far I'm happy with it but would like to know more what this unit does.

I have never seen a Melos preamp. I am not sure what you've got. Is it a phono-only stage or a full-function preamp, which would have a built in linestage section? The way to know that is to look at the rear of the unit. Do you see multiple pairs of inputs, labeled variously "CD", "Tuner", "Tape", etc? If so, it's a full-function preamplifier with a built-in phono stage. And if that's the case, it makes no sense to run its output through your "preamplifier", which is probably a line stage. One reason you may feel it's "pretty good" and not very good is that you are using it as a phono stage. You will remove a layer of distortion if you connect it directly to your amplifier, assuming you do verify it is a full-function preamp.

The load resistances, varying from 47K to 1 ohm, by your own description represent the load seen by the phono cartridge as it "looks back" into the phono input. For high output cartridges, meaning most moving magnet (MM) and moving iron (MI) cartridges, and for high output moving coils (HOMC), set the load to 47K, and forget it. That probably includes the Eroica. The fact that the unit has the capacity to vary the load down to 1 ohm suggests to me that it may in fact have enough gain for a low output moving coil cartridge, most of which sound best with a load resistance of anywhere from 1000 ohms down to 50 ohms. There is no cartridge ever made that would work well into a 1 ohm load, so I don't understand that bit.