I have been researching this lately myself and have found that there are two camps with decidely different points of view (so what else is new in high end?).
One side says that no matter how well designed and built a MC stage is, without a transformer to step up the signal it cannot handle the extremely small level of an MC cartridge without adding noise and distortion to the signal. Audio Note prefers this approach. However, their ultimate solution is a transformer in excess of $10,000.
The other side says that the inherent nonlinearities in any transformer are worse than the distortions introduced by a high gain MC stage.
At this stage of the game I suspect that good results can be had with either approach. I have used an Aesthetix IO with my .35 mV cartrige and have been very happy but this is a > $5,000 solution. I also used the Pass Ono and it too was very good.
I have now been forced to downsize from the IO and the only solution I could come up with was to go the transformer into a MM phono stage route. I am awaiting the arrival of this equipment so it is all conjecture at this point, but I think at your price level this is a better approach. There are many good preamps with phono stage for around $1000 used and transformers are not that much. There is an Ortofon T3000 on eBay now for $600 shipped.
One side says that no matter how well designed and built a MC stage is, without a transformer to step up the signal it cannot handle the extremely small level of an MC cartridge without adding noise and distortion to the signal. Audio Note prefers this approach. However, their ultimate solution is a transformer in excess of $10,000.
The other side says that the inherent nonlinearities in any transformer are worse than the distortions introduced by a high gain MC stage.
At this stage of the game I suspect that good results can be had with either approach. I have used an Aesthetix IO with my .35 mV cartrige and have been very happy but this is a > $5,000 solution. I also used the Pass Ono and it too was very good.
I have now been forced to downsize from the IO and the only solution I could come up with was to go the transformer into a MM phono stage route. I am awaiting the arrival of this equipment so it is all conjecture at this point, but I think at your price level this is a better approach. There are many good preamps with phono stage for around $1000 used and transformers are not that much. There is an Ortofon T3000 on eBay now for $600 shipped.