Pro-ject Tube Box SEII setting with Blackbird cart

I woulld try it with MC settings first. Is your linestage high gain or low gain?

It all comes down to the mv. output of the cart. Yes it is a MC, but, it has the high output of a typical MM. Use the MM input. Not sure if plugging it into the MC input would hurt anything, but, I wouldn't try it. I did this myself years ago out of curiosity with a Bluepoint Special and Classe DR4 preamp. It sounded awful and was overloading the phono section. After quickly disconnecting, I was glad to find no damage was done to the preamp.

Thanks for the response. The Blackbird is rated at 2.5 mv output voltage. The Tube Box SEII is rated at 40 db gain for MM and 60 db gain for MC.