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MC Transformer or phono stage - help anyone?

I am seeking the sage advice of all the vinyl experts. I have a Benz ruby 2 on an Audiomeca romance arm and turntable. I run it through the moving coil section of my Musical Fidelity Nuvista M3 integrated. The cartridge is medium output (.4 mV) and while I am happy with the sound I suspect the phono stage is the weak link of my system. I notice the bass to be a bit weak particulary lower notes. Does anyone have comments on what sort of improvement adding in either a good moving coil phono stage or transformer would have (little or large). If so which would you recommend (stage or transformer and brand)? I have tried to read up on this but still end up quite uncertain. My price range is uncertain - I would say what would I have to spend to see a reasonable difference. I would hope somewhere between 1-2,000 but less would not be bad. Options I wondered about were the Benz stage or the 47 labs phono cube. The rest of my system by the way is listed. The room is a large one (18 X 40 with cathedral ceilings and I listen to mostly classical and jazz, but some rock as well. Thanks in advance for taking the time to read this and any help would be greatly appreciated.

Gary
gajgmusic

Showing 1 response by tomw26b96

tomw26b96
2 posts
 
You will never know about certain things until you try them in your system. For 199.00 K+K Audio has a transformer step up kit which you can set up 5,10,or 20 times. Even with a grado sonata with 1.5 mv output and about 48db gain phono pre, in my system, the sound was very undyanmic and had little bass. I stepped it up 5 times to 7.5 and it was a whole new ball game. It was more dyanmic and full bodied than my grado reference/reference with 4.5 output and no step up. In theory 1.5 mv and 48db should be fine but it sure liked 7.5mv alot better. In the worst case you would be out 199.00 in your present system, but you would always have a step up device in the future, for various cartridges and or pre amp changes.

Enjoy Tom
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