mc cartridge loading

The PH-1 is solid state, Lew, and according to Stereophile's review (which was favorable and made no mention of the high input capacitance) "the circuit itself appears to be based on Burr-Brown OPA2134 op-amp chips." I suppose that the high capacitance reflects a capacitor being placed across the input, for whatever reason. Perhaps (just guessing) to apply such a heavy load at radio frequencies that RF energy would be essentially kept out of the circuitry altogether.

Best regards,
-- Al
 

I have an Ortofon Quintet Black on a Technics 1200G connected to a NAD M12 pre-amp.  This is my first MC cartridge.  I get a very pleasing and musical sound with that combination.  I'm going to eventually buy a tube pre-amp.  I found a great deal on a Audio Alchemy PPA 1 phono preamplifier, so I purchased it.  

I set it up at 200 ohms, which is 10x Ortofon's > 20 ohms minimum.  The sound was way too low as compared to the M12 phone input.  For "normal" listening, I set volume at around -20  to -25 db when using the M12 phone input.  With the PPA 1, I had to set volume to +1.5 db to achieve a comparable sound level.  

So I used 700 ohms and got a much higher sound level at -20, but still not equal to the M12.  Should I be using a SUT with the PPA 1? 

The  PPA 1 produces a good sound, but I don't like having to up the volume level to hear it as I want.  Especially since my streaming music volume is set around -30 to -40, so I have to remember to lower the volume when going from vinyl to streaming.

I don't have that problem with the M12 as I've lowered the streaming gain by -9 db and have the M12 gain set at 0, so I don't get blown out of the water when switching from one the other.  Streaming is still higher, but I don't worry about blowing my speakers.

Any ideas? I'm going to set ohms to 1000 to see what happens to sound level and SQ.  I'll probably end up sending it back. Having said that, is what I'm experiencing "normal?"

If you can get your system to sound as loud as you want it to be and noise is not an issue, then you actually have enough gain.  I can understand not wanting to set the volume level so high, particularly where it is possible that an "accident" could end up causing you to blast sound at a high volume. 

If that possibility makes you uncomfortable, then, it is a matter that needs to be addressed regardless of the sound quality.  That means either a higher gain phonostage or the use of a step up transformer.  The transformer route also means an additional interconnect, so that has to be factored into the price and performance.  I don't know what is the gain on the PPA, but something else with more gain is probably what you are sound be looking for to replace the PPA.