Might not the output impedance (generally high) of a tube phono preamp make trouble for a passive preamp? I know that Gordon Rankin of Wavelength strongly recommends an active preamp for use with his Tangent phono preamp, output impedance 1500 ohms. Caution on that score would be wise, I think. Anyway, others have given you a lot of good advice.
Phono Stage for passive preamp control
Considering transformer-based passive preamplification. Can anyone suggest a quality tube phono stage with sufficient gain for lower input MC pickups in such a configuration ($2K new or used range)? Don't need volume control on the phono stage, but could go with one that wil bypass the volume control. Am I restricted to a SS phono stage in order to have sufficient gain WITHOUT a step-up device?