SUT - electrical theory and practical experience

Dave, I’m getting my Festivus pole out of storage now. I just aired my grievances with my wife. Then we’re going out for Chinese food.

Dear @drbond  : Yes, is more easy posted that way that give an answers that affect you because what I posted seems to me is true.

Ignore is your proble. Fine with me.

You have a huge problem that I posted in some of my posts: why with your CH are you asking so " deep " in a SUT other than buy one of same preamp manufacturer? This has no sense to me but obviously has a lot of sense to you that are not 100% satisfied with the CH. Maybe I'm wrong.

R.

Enough Raul.

Thought I share my perspective. In short, SUT’s are imo very cost effective and it easily gets forgotten. Some people have restrictions, for example room/placement and/or economical limits. Thats the case for me. 
Have Kenwood KD-990 (increased mass on tonearm) with Denon DL-103 for the past 25 years. Monitor audio speakers just as long. Standard gear all the way. 
Phono preamps have changed over the years though and also nowdays have a Denon DL-305. Started with cheapest Pro-ject stage and my last and to me most ”expensive” phono preamp was ASR Mini Basis. It was a nice sounding unit for sure, but there was constant noise from the speakers. Not too bad and didnt really notice it once the needle dropped but there was noise for sure. Decided to try a SUT instead, bought AU-340 and never looked back. I run the SUT to my Denon AVC-X8500 built in phono stage (I assume its crap!) still this is the best sound I had. Paid 350 USD for the AU-340, there is absolutely no way a phono preamp at that price would stand even the slightest chance against the SUT. So take this into consideration please. Also, maybe some people like fiddling around with dip switches and experimenting with loads etc etc, I did with my ASR but the whole thing just annoyed me at the end. 
I am about to buy a better MM phono preamp now. No silly money though, looking for something tops 500 USD. Any recomendations apreciated. 
Respect and thanks for a great forum that helped me a lot over the years.

rubandscrub - the cost effectivity is certainly an important aspect, like you write. I also have an ASR Mini Basis, now used mainly as a backup in case my main phono stage has problems. If your Denon carts have 0.2 - 0.3 mV output, I am not surprised that things improved with a SUT. More 'muscle', I imagine. Although I think the sound of the Mini Basis is quite good for the price, it is a bit 'polite', even with my 0.56 mV cartridge. The noise you heard may be due to stretching it, with the gain at or near max (I did not have this problem, using a medium setting).