marktomaras
As always, the best advice is to try the SP20 in your system before purchase. A typical ARC dealer will be happy to let you do that.
One concern I have is that my Whest is providing 60dB of gain to my Lyra Delos. Then, the ARC LS25 is providing 18dB of gain through the balanced connection. The specs on the SP20 are showing lower gain in the phono stage and lower gain in the line stage section of the preamplifier. Does this mean that the SP20 will not produce as much volume in my system? As it is now, I have to crank the volume up to the 3 o’clock position on the LS25’s volume knob to get particularly loud music with my turntable, sometimes even a hair past 3 o’clock to get to concert levels.The position of the volume control for any given output level is determined as much by the taper of the control itself as it is the gain of the preamplifier. So long as a preamp has sufficient gain to drive your amplifier to full output, the actual position of the volume control is irrelevant. It looks like the SP20 does have a lower phono gain than the Whest, and this will limit your choice of phono cartridges to those with output high enough to drive it but, with 58 dB of gain, the SP20 has pretty high gain on the phono section.
As always, the best advice is to try the SP20 in your system before purchase. A typical ARC dealer will be happy to let you do that.