Phono stage gain

[mac72]

There is very little said about matching phono stage gain to the cartridge of our choice .
What I'm trying to do is establish the gain of Paradise stage to match either of my carts , they're Zyx R50 Bloom H , Benz micro ace sl and wood , all of them have output around 0.7mV @5cm/sec .
That's the way I'm thinking, if cartridge has a nominal level of 0.7V RMS at 5cm/s I want the maximum level of a typical LP to put about 2V RMS output from the phono stage. So, if the nomimal level is 0.7mV and the maximum recorded level on the LP is 20dB above that, that is 10X the 0.7mV level, or 7mV then 2000mV/7mV =285 gain, or 49dB gain ,6dB of headroom and I get something like 55dB of gain.
Any input please

[Firebottle]

Hi Slav, with the output of your carts the usually accepted nominal MC gain of 60dB will be perfect.

Not sure about the maximum recorded level on the LP is 20dB above nominal, are you trying to accommodate maximum transient peaks within a headroom limit?

If you want more headroom then you need to reduce the gain, not add it as you have above.
Providing you have the output required to give you the volume you want, then reducing the gain will also lower the noise floor.
:)

[YNWaN]

My own Paradise has no issue with the 0.2 mV output of my cartridge. Given that the Paradise also has very high input overload margins then it will have no trouble with any of the cartridges you mention.

[mac72]

60dB seems to be a lot , with 0.7mV nominal output it feeds preamplifier with 0.7V while most of the cd players give 250-300mV nominal and around 2V peaks

[sq225917]

Slav, you're giving the output of your carts at 5cm/s, it's more usual to give the 3.5cm/s measurement, which is closer to .5mV. The Paradise has enough headroom on the input stage to take 1.0mV of input from the cartridge. Standard gain is 64db. You'll have no issue with input level to the Paradise, or clipping on output.

Are you just interested in working out the numbers for the sake of it, or do you actually have too much level for your pre-amp input?



Reducing gain to trim noise from the Paradise is a pointless exercise, there is virtually no noise, and you just lose a touch of dynamics as you throw out the gain. This ain't a valve stage.

[mac72]

My own Paradise has no issue with the 0.2 mV output of my cartridge. Given that the Paradise also has very high input overload margins then it will have no trouble with any of the cartridges you mention.
Paradise is not my concern but preamplifier , too much gain means higher noise level and possible clipping at the peaks

[mac72]

Slav, you're giving the output of your carts at 5cm/s, it's more usual to give the 3.5cm/s measurement, which is closer to .5mV. The Paradise has enough headroom on the input stage to take 1.0mV of input from the cartridge. Standard gain is 64db. You'll have no issue with input level to the Paradise, or clipping on output.

Are you just interested in working out the numbers for the sake of it, or do you actually have too much level for your pre-amp input?



Reducing gain to trim noise from the Paradise is a pointless exercise, there is virtually no noise, and you just lose a touch of dynamics as you throw out the gain. This ain't a valve stage.

Paradise 62dB means amplification of 1250 with 0.7 mV @5cm/sec (which should be used as I believe not Japanese 3.54 ) gives 0.875V , majority of preamplifiers have input sensitivity of 300-350mV , hence my question