Tubes are inherently tweakier than solid state. You can have tubes that have gone a bit 'microphonic' that need to be weeded out as a first step. Power up the phono stage with the cover off and the volume at midrange, and very gently tap each tube with a pencil eraser and see what comes out of the speakers - a bad tube will be pretty obvious and I've had bad ones even in brand new batches.
Gain mismatches with a low output moving coil cartridge into a tube phono stage running at almost full volume are likely to give you some noise. If you listen to rock music with limited dynamic range that still may work for you, but on music with greater dynamic range you are likely to hear noise. Consider the SUT that several have suggested - they work quite well - as long as you set the impedance correctly, assuming that it is adjustable on your unit.
And unlike solid state gear, you have a whole new set of non-soldered contacts that can get dirty and make unreliable contact and will need cleaning (usually every few years) I'll leave the cleaning procedure and materials to someone else to explain.
Get the contacts right, and the tubes non-microphonic and the gain correct and it still may be a noisy pre-preamp for your system. Which is why I run a solid state phono pre in my main system, which otherwise uses all tube amplification. If you get a tube phono stage operating well for you, don't get upgraditis and get something else - you may well regret it. I have had a tube phono stage in my second system (which ironically is otherwise all solid state) for some time and it is quiet and really quite good (CJ Premier 15). I have no intention of changing it any time soon.
Gain mismatches with a low output moving coil cartridge into a tube phono stage running at almost full volume are likely to give you some noise. If you listen to rock music with limited dynamic range that still may work for you, but on music with greater dynamic range you are likely to hear noise. Consider the SUT that several have suggested - they work quite well - as long as you set the impedance correctly, assuming that it is adjustable on your unit.
And unlike solid state gear, you have a whole new set of non-soldered contacts that can get dirty and make unreliable contact and will need cleaning (usually every few years) I'll leave the cleaning procedure and materials to someone else to explain.
Get the contacts right, and the tubes non-microphonic and the gain correct and it still may be a noisy pre-preamp for your system. Which is why I run a solid state phono pre in my main system, which otherwise uses all tube amplification. If you get a tube phono stage operating well for you, don't get upgraditis and get something else - you may well regret it. I have had a tube phono stage in my second system (which ironically is otherwise all solid state) for some time and it is quiet and really quite good (CJ Premier 15). I have no intention of changing it any time soon.