Hi Bruce,
You won't run out of headroom as long as you don't find yourself wanting to turn the volume control up past its 104 maximum.
The main question is when you set the volume control to the highest position that you would ever want to set it at for serious listening, are the hiss levels then objectionably high when a record is NOT being played?
If so, there's a problem. If not, once you've optimized loading you should be good to go. (It looks like 100, 200, and 500 ohms are the choices provided by your phono stage which fall within the range that is recommended in the specifications of the Kleos, although there would be no harm in trying the 1K or 47K settings).
If you do have objectionable hiss under this condition, the one possible way of trying to reduce it that occurs to me, short of adding a SUT or headamp or changing phono stages, would be tube rolling the phono stage. However I have some doubt that this would help, because I see that the PH-8 uses a solid state (JFET) front end. When there are multiple gain stages in series the one that is furthest upstream generally tends to be the one that is most critical with respect to overall noise performance, since a given amount of noise that is generated at that point will be greater in relation to signal level than the same amount of noise would be if generated at points further downstream.
Re your question about record hiss, having to operate at a higher volume control setting will not change the amount of record-generated hiss (as opposed to phono stage-generated hiss) that you hear, compared to listening at the same SPL via a higher output cartridge, at a lower setting of the volume control. Although the design of the cartridge, as opposed to the volume control setting that its output level necessitates, can of course make a difference in how much record-generated hiss or surface noise is heard. But, that difference aside, the signal-to-noise ratio of the record itself is what it is.
Best regards,
-- Al
You won't run out of headroom as long as you don't find yourself wanting to turn the volume control up past its 104 maximum.
The main question is when you set the volume control to the highest position that you would ever want to set it at for serious listening, are the hiss levels then objectionably high when a record is NOT being played?
If so, there's a problem. If not, once you've optimized loading you should be good to go. (It looks like 100, 200, and 500 ohms are the choices provided by your phono stage which fall within the range that is recommended in the specifications of the Kleos, although there would be no harm in trying the 1K or 47K settings).
If you do have objectionable hiss under this condition, the one possible way of trying to reduce it that occurs to me, short of adding a SUT or headamp or changing phono stages, would be tube rolling the phono stage. However I have some doubt that this would help, because I see that the PH-8 uses a solid state (JFET) front end. When there are multiple gain stages in series the one that is furthest upstream generally tends to be the one that is most critical with respect to overall noise performance, since a given amount of noise that is generated at that point will be greater in relation to signal level than the same amount of noise would be if generated at points further downstream.
Re your question about record hiss, having to operate at a higher volume control setting will not change the amount of record-generated hiss (as opposed to phono stage-generated hiss) that you hear, compared to listening at the same SPL via a higher output cartridge, at a lower setting of the volume control. Although the design of the cartridge, as opposed to the volume control setting that its output level necessitates, can of course make a difference in how much record-generated hiss or surface noise is heard. But, that difference aside, the signal-to-noise ratio of the record itself is what it is.
Best regards,
-- Al