Where to Connect a Phono Preamplifier into a Line Stage

One limitation of using the tape out jacks is that they are located in the complete pre-amp circuit ahead of not just the volume control, but also the balance and mode (stereo/reverse/mono/left/right) controls. Those controls are the very reason I have an ARC LS-1 (in addition to an EAR-Yoshino 868L), and I wish contemporary pre-amps has them, as well as a phase switch. Ralph Karsten includes the latter in his Atma-Sphere pre’s.

All "non-essential" controls were jettisoned in the purist pursuit of creating the shortest signal path, and pre-amps and integrateds containing them have become viewed as compromised, non true high-end designs. Well la de da ;-) .

In the 60's/early-70's, the hardest core audiophiles did as Lew just said: take the signal coming out of the tape monitor jacks and use that to feed their power amp, thereby bypassing the line stage. That worked only if the gain provided by a line stage was not necessary in their system.

But what of adjusting volume? Back then, many of those same hardcore audiophiles knew their way around a soldering iron, and would make themselves a little volume pot box to put between the tape out jacks and the power amp inputs. Roger Modjeski made them, listing them on his Music Reference website for cheap.

That left only the matter of the output impedance of the tape monitor outputs, which is sometimes higher than the main outputs.