Handyman,
It's a shame you ended up with a mismatched cart and phono stage, but that certainly sounds like the problem. Adding a transformer is a terrible idea IMHO, and clearly avoids the root cause.
If the PH7 is designed for LOMC cart, then get one or sell the phono stage and get something with more flexibility. When evaluating carts, you need to consider the combo of the cart & phono stage for gain; you also need to consider the combo of arm/cart for compliance compatibility.
By reading about what carts PH7 owners use, you will probably be able to quickly get a sense of what output range to consider. Then you can use online interactive chart(vinylengine? somebody help me here, please) to evaluate compliance compatibility for various arm masses vs. carts. Now you will have a list of viable candidates, and you can narrow it down by price and the sonic attributes for each model vs. your goals/preferences.
Perhaps ph7 owners can chime in...cheers,
Spencer
It's a shame you ended up with a mismatched cart and phono stage, but that certainly sounds like the problem. Adding a transformer is a terrible idea IMHO, and clearly avoids the root cause.
If the PH7 is designed for LOMC cart, then get one or sell the phono stage and get something with more flexibility. When evaluating carts, you need to consider the combo of the cart & phono stage for gain; you also need to consider the combo of arm/cart for compliance compatibility.
By reading about what carts PH7 owners use, you will probably be able to quickly get a sense of what output range to consider. Then you can use online interactive chart(vinylengine? somebody help me here, please) to evaluate compliance compatibility for various arm masses vs. carts. Now you will have a list of viable candidates, and you can narrow it down by price and the sonic attributes for each model vs. your goals/preferences.
Perhaps ph7 owners can chime in...cheers,
Spencer