What's a phonostage, and do I need one?


Help a newbie make the right decisions. I'm almost finished putting together my beginner stereo system. All I have left is deciding on my turntable. I've been looking at the Audiogon discussions and pretty much decided on a Music Hall MMF-2.1 or 5 (I'm leaning towards the 5). My system is powered by an old Marantz 2270 (70 watts). It has a phono jack. One of the discussion threads concerned someone whose phono output was only putting out 1/2 the volume of his other sources. My question is, if I'm using my old receiver, am I going to need to purchase something else on top of what is included with the MMF-5 (or 2.1) for my turntable to sound comperable to my other sources? (my other sources are a marantz CC3000 5 disk changer and an old Nakamichi tape deck.) Thanks in advance.
nicko

Showing 1 response by sidssp

A phono stage/preamp does two things: 1) provide RIAA equalization and 2) provides extra gains for the lower output of cartridges. As a general guideline, you need 30-40db extra gain over line level for high output MM cartridge, 50-60db for high output MC and over 60db for low output MC.

The phono jack of your Marantz should give you RIAA equalization and enough gain for high output MM. As long as you are using a high output MM cartridge, you don’t need to buy anything. But if you want to use a low output MM or a MC cartridge, you will need a separate phono preamp and connect its output to a line level jack, usually marked as AUX in, and not to the phono jack.