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Need advice: SUT for Denon DL-301 Mk.II?

A

abhimawa

New Member
Hi all,
I am thinking of going into vinyl, and am planning to get Musical Fidelity M1 VINL and Denon DL-301 Mk.II cartridge. I wonder if this setup will require an SUT (e.g. Ortofon Verto)?
My amp is Audio Research VSI55 that comes with passive line stage, and it drives a pair of Revel bookshelf speakers.
Thank you very much.

Andreas
 
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Andreas: Well, looks like the MF stage only provides ~ 55 dB of gain for the MC input, while the AR amp has a rather low input sensitivity of 0.5 V - so it's quite likely, that you wouldn't be able to drive the AR to its maximum that way. If you don't need that anyway, that wouldn't really be a problem - but if you do, I'd suggest to look for a phono stage that provides at least 60 dB of gain for MCs...

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini
 
Thank you very much Manfred.

I have no knowledge about phono and input sensitivity of amp, but I know that my amp has no gain. So, thank you for pointing that out.

Do you think an SUT will help in this case?
 
At a 33 Ohm impedence, I think a Cinemag based SUT set at 1:16 step up ratio would work well. The cartridge would see about a 200 Ohm load and the output would be around 5.6mv.
 
Andreas: Well, of course you could use a step-up tranny like the Verto - but I don't quite see the point in buying a not exactly cheap MM/MC stage plus a not exactly cheap tranny, and that for a comparatively inexpensive MC cart...

However, given that the MF also sports balanced outputs, one could also squeeze ~ 6 dB more gain out of it by using a 1:1 audio tranny (e.g. in form of a high quality passive "DI box") to convert the balanced output to unbalanced/single-ended. That works, because the normal/hot and the inverted/cold output together provide twice the voltage swing compared to the single-ended output, so a 1:1 tranny would provide ~ 6 dB more compared to a simple adaptor...

But if I was in your situtation, I'd nevertheless rather go for a different MM/MC stage with higher gain - at least for MC, but preferably also for MM, 'cause the 40 dB of gain for that input can also be somewhat marginal for the AR amp (for example in combination with comparatively quiet high output MCs like for example the DL110).

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini
 
Thank you Andy and Lini! Now I see your point. Yes, I think I should look for another phono stage with higher gain.

Regards,
Andreas
 
Andreas: Yup, in your case I'd deem that a better idea.

Oh, and on a sidenote, it's not like your AR amp "has no gain" - it's just not applied before the power amp section. Amps with passive line stages aren't that rare, though.

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini
 
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