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Do I need a sut?

I purchased an Ortofon MC2000 cart from a fellow A'Goner, it is very low output .05mV, my phono pre is a Herron VTPH-2 which has 69db of gain and my pre is a Herron VTSP-3a(r02) 14db gain.
The cart sounds wonderful, but with such a low gain I have to turn up the volume by quite a lot. If I had, another source at that volume, I wouldn't be able to stand it. With the volume turned up so high I get a fair amount of noise between tracks. 
Should I be looking at an sut or just live with it the way it is? I found an Ortofon at a decent price, it has 24db of gain. Would that be ok to go into the mc input on the VTPH-2? The mm gain is 48db, if I plugged it in there I would only gain 3db(if I'm doing my math correctly) I will also be contacting Keith, but I thought I would ask here too.
Thanks
Jeff
jdodmead

Showing 5 responses by analogluvr

analogluvr
859 posts
 
 I don't know that SUT in particular but fidelity research is known for making very fine stuff.   And as somebody else mentioned it is very saleable should you not like it. And the reason why it is very saleable is because it is very good. 
analogluvr
859 posts
 
 Also the Herron has two configurations as far as gain goes. You just have to switch the Tubes from 12at7 to 12 a X7 to make it the higher gain version. I'm not sure which configuration you have. 
analogluvr
859 posts
 
 Hi Jeff,Don't sweat it, just get the sUTand try it. As long as you didn't overpay you should be able to get it out of it unscathed if you want to.  Raul just hates SUTs in general and Tubes as well so I wouldn't give him too much credibility.   He may be right about the frequency response not going out to 100 kHz but that's not important anyways. As long as it doesn't have a sharp cut off at 25 kHz like digital it's not gonna show any anomalies in the audible range. Specs only tell half the story but he seems fixated on them. Another thing to consider is back in those days manufacturers were honest about the specs whereas these days it seems numbers are just chosen out of thin air sometimes.
analogluvr
859 posts
 
In my experience once you get to cartridge out puts this low it's pretty much impossible not to use an SUT.    Maybe I just haven't tried the right active device. 
analogluvr
859 posts
 
That's what Raul does. Apparently him and a friend came up with a solid-state phonostage so now all tubes are crap and backwards technology.  He focusses on the fact that the specifications of solid-state are better than Tubes regarding frequency response and distortion but conveniently ignores the fact that the ear hears different distortions differently.  
He is  probably one of the, if not the most annoying opinionated individuals on this forum. 
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