Sell both your phono preamps. The Avid, at 48dB gain is apparently too sensitive to overloading by your not abnormally high output MM cartridges, and the Pro-Ject because you don’t respect its quality. Then buy a Spartan 20, which is £500 and has impeccable accuracy, generous overload margins, and negligible noise. You will be hearing your records, not your preamp.
Ortofon carts are too hot for my phono preamp?
When I need hardware advice, I always come to Audiogon for the true experts. Thanks in advance and happy Easter!
So after much trial and error, I THINK I have deduced that my Ortofon 2M Bronze and 2M Black cartridges are too hot for my Avid Pulsus phono preamp. Some softer recordings are fine, but I think I am hearing some distortion with loud transients and even sometimes on relatively loud vocals.
I have a Pro-ject tube phono preamp I swap in and I don’ t hear that distortion. I never hear that distortion with other sources.
Given my investment in 3 Ortofon 2M carts (1 Bronze, 1 Black, 1 Black SE) and the Pulsus, is there anything I can do to step down that signal from the carts without doing any damage to the sound?
Any other thoughts?
(BTW the 2 turntables I am using are a Rega P3/24 and an older Rotel. Meridian preamp has variable gain settings on inputs and I can hear the distortion at any setting.)