Soundstage gone

FWIW, while I’m not sure about Teo_Audio’s terms I can assure you that some products do need to "break in" to reach their normal performance. I don’t think a long period is necessary to hear the promise of great things to come but from my experience I will judge nothing that hasn’t been operating at least 24 hours. Nothing. I usually find the product ’dark’ and closed in and after some time passes the mid’s and highs start to appear. Probably the best thing for you to do at this point in time is to be patient and see what happens. "Soundstaging" lives in the mids and highs which are often late developing.

If after 24 operating hours (I like to actually use the product, not just leaving it on)  you note no difference then perhaps its time to press your dealer for some kind of resolution.

BTW, I assume you have other sources plugged in, have you checked them to insure the line stage is operating properly? I assume that you have, but.....

Iviv, Initially I took your post literally, i.e. the only signal you got from your new system was in mono. Upon re-reading your post, and subsequent posts, I am no longer feeling  as sure. In fact I'm starting to think that perhaps you might have a greatly reduce soundstage - the difference is important so perhaps you could better define what you hear. One thing you can do to clarify this is to play a disc and, while doing so, simply press your mono button putting it in mono and see if there is any difference at all. Also switch your speaker connections i.e. left side to right side etc. It would certainly help put your problem in a more defined area of inquiry, i.e. cartridge function issues, cartridge connection issues, set up issues, or just plain old break-in (so much new stuff all at one time). 

Good luck.

Do I understand you correctly - you are plugging  the RCAs from the turntable (actually arm/cartridge) into something other than the phono stage in your preamp (or a separate outboard phono stage)?

If so that is your problem. An MC cartridge generally has a has a lower output than a MM cartridge and needs additional amplification. Its capacitance usually needs to be much lower as well, but both types of cartridges need a matching phono stage. You cannot (successfully) just plug the  phono cable into a line input of  pre-amplifier to get the necessary equalization needed to run any cartridge.

You can use the MM input with a MC cartridge using an outboard amplifier specially made for this purpose.  

Very interesting problem I think. You appear to be using it correctly (into a line stage) I don't know that it makes any difference, but are you using RCA's or balanced outputs?

Just to see where the problem might be why not just try bypassing the MC amp and plugging RCA's from your turntable arm into the MM stage on your pre-amp and see what happens. You could expect to get a greatly reduced out put but least you could be sure that the problem was not associated with the built in MC pre. It could be a problem with the cartridge, but off hand I can figure out how you would reduce the output of your phono system to a centered mono signal.

I agree with mijostyn do check the cartridge connections.

Dumb question time. Have you accidentally pressed the mono button on your amp? That would do it every time. ;-)