Hi End Pre-Amp shoot out in central jersey?

I assume you mean line stages here? Or did you also compare the phono stages?

Can you share the differences, pros/cons of the Dart vs. the MA1 in your system? It's good to get a feel of these parameters to know how subsequent line stages compare to this "reference".

I think Mechans is referring to a phono stage?

NOT! Very very few phono stages, new or old, go much beyond 60db. And nearly all that have this much gain achieve it with a step-up transformer which takes a typical MM stage of 35-40db up another 20 to achieve 55-60db to support medium-output MC's.

db = 20Log(Av), where Av is the voltage gain. A gain of 200db would be 10 billion; the 8 billion noted above is close enough.

To imagine a line stage with an output of 1v to drive many amps to serious levels, and do this with a phono/line gain of 200db would imply the phono cartridge has an output of less than a nanovolt. This is silly. And to achieve any kind of phono gain beyond 60 db or so with tubes and deal with the noise issue almost requires miracles....something the SP6 is not capable of, heavily modded or not.

And now back to the main program.