Plinius M16 Phono vs. Plinius M14 Separate Phono

In my experience different quality phonostages make a big difference. I have the Plinius M14 today which works very nicely in my system with a LAMM LL2 preamp and was a substantial improvement over a previous system (Sonic Frontiers Signature phonstage and Conrad Johnson PV10 preamp) and an even bigger improvement over just using the phono stage in the PV10 preamp. It seems to me that you have an excellent analog front end, possibly beyond the ability of your phonostage to realize all its potential.

Hi Tfjm, the Plinius, as a solid state amp, gave more detail and bass than the previous phonostages I mentioned. It has adjustable gain and loading. I use mostly low gain even though my cartridge is a Moving coil Shelter with .4mv output. This is not super low but I have the opposite problem from you in that if I use high gain I have very little play to use in the volume adjustment. I generally would only use one quarter adjustment but have more range to use with low gain.