CAT SL1 - is there enough GAIN using 0.4mV mc??

I have the CAT SL1 Mk 3 & use a Benz L2, which is 0.4mV. The CAT by itself does *NOT* have enough gain for a 0.4mV MC cart. I tried it for about a month: by opening up the volume pot, I could get enough volume thru the speakers but the quality of the sound was pretty bad vs. what I know the CAT can produce. There was a serious absence of bass in the music. So, I got a 14dB step-up xformer (from K & K Audio that uses Lundahl xformers, which I really like. I have no hesitation recommending it. It costs $225 in kit for & ~$300 in finished form. The website is: http://www.kandkaudio.com. FWIW). This fixed the bass issue & I have sufficient gain now. The sound quality is back up to what I think the CAT should be producing.

The objective (for 0.4mV type MC cartridges) is to get atleast 60dB of gain in your phono stage (step-up + phono OR phono only - the types that have a MC/MM switch).
Hope that this helps.

Hi Spencer,

Good to read that you have the CAT up & running & that you are enjoying it & that you consider it an improvement from your prev. preamp. Whew! I don't feel so bad recommending this pre to you then! :-)
Thanks for the compliments, BTW.
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Hi All,

Now, re. the CAT sound w/o a step-up: I can only speak w.r.t. to my system & room. I found that I had enough bass for Jazz music. However, the bass was lacking for both Rock & Blues music. Bwtn these 2 genres, it was missing more on Blues music. Bass is an integral part of Blues & if the slam factor is on the low side, Blues just sound right. That's how it felt in my room.
BTW, w/o a step-up I had to open the vol control to 10 o'clock to get half-way decent volume. 12 o'clock was well over 90dB SPL loud. I was beginning to get happy about this 'cuz volume controls sound their best when set between 12 o'clock & 3 o'clock. It is a myth that one should not open up the volume control! In fact, the more open it is, the better the sound.
However, in my case it didn't work out. I got the volume but as a friend put it I had "no bass heft". The tube rush got louder too. Couldn't hear it from my seated position but I could hear it as I approached the speakers.
BTW did you all ever notice that MC stand-alone phono stages come with 60dB gain while stand-alone MM phono stages come with 40dB gain? The CAT phono stage has 47dB gain & by adding 14dB thru the step-up, I no have 61dB.
Also, from the CAT phono spec: the input sens. is 0.12mV. So, 0.4mV is nearly 4X higher than min. sensitivity. It's good but I have found that to get a really good signal:noise in a real-world setting one needs to be 10X above the min. sensitivity.
Like Kleech put it: try it with & without one to find out what you are missing.

Should have edited my post before posting but I hit the wrong key!

Correction: I meant to say that Blues does NOT sound right if the bass slam is missing.
(might be obvious but all-the-same).