Would increasing the gain in the amp give more weight to the sound? Any negatives?

Genez has hit on a good point there, but it could be just one channel that's out of phase with the wiring in the cartridge/arm/or even the PH1. Just try reversing the polarity of one channel first. 

Cheers George

I think it comes down to the fact that passive preamp is no way to go if you want full-bodied sound,

You countered that argument by your saying the cassette is fine. 
I would also hazard a guess that your PH1 will have a better stronger output stage and with more voltage than the old Naka's got.

Cheers George

The deck maybe 47k and loading the phono stage differently to the 10k of the Redgum.

Cheers George

I don't think he has an impedance mismatch, as the phono is solid state, unless they did something really stupid to make it high impedance output like some tube ones are.

I think it may be a case of the tonal balance of the cartridge or what the loading by the phono stage is, as he says the cassett deck is fine. 


Cheers George

He has up to 8v! available from the Ph-1 phono stage and if it’s a low impedance output (<500ohms), there is no "signal strength" problem.
As most amps only need .5-1v in for full output into clipping, so why add even more gain with additional noise as well??

Cheers George

This say to me that the PH1 maybe capacitor coupled and could be rolling of the bass into the 10k of the Redgum but not the 50k of the Nakka.
If so this is an easy fix, just make the output coupling cap of the PH1 4 x larger. eg: If 1uf make it 4uf.

Cheers George  

Hi inna,
Your Redgum is a very low 10kohm input impedance, which could trouble some sources that have high’ish output impedances (eg >1kohm) this could be your problem if you phono stage is >1kohm.

I can’t find what the output impedance is of your Phono stage is, but I did find out just one of the few AcousTech phono stages, was designed by Ron Sutherland .

I just found this if it's your model.
"AcousTech Electronics PH-1 phono preamplifier "
" Recommended load: 10k ohms or greater"

You are right on the min, with the 10kohm of the Redgum if this is your Phono stage.

Cheers George

Inna, have you tried the two different cartridge loading options, as I remember back to the Supex SD900 days it preferred 10ohm loading to 100ohms as the 100ohms made it sound a bit too rounded.
You have plenty of output with the PH1 as it can give out 8v!!!, more than enough to clip any power amp, so you definitely don't need more gain with an active preamp.

Quote Stereophile on the PH1:" Input impedance: 100 ohms in parallel with 0.01µF (MC), or 47k ohms in parallel with 200pF (MM).

Cheers George

Would increasing the gain in the amp give more weight to the sound? Any negatives?
I have an integrated amp with passive preamp section and I feel that the sound is not full-bodied enough. The separate phono stage has 42db of gain and I use MM cartridge. When I play cassette deck, the sound is just right in this respect.
I talked to the designer, and he said that increasing the gain is theoretically possible, though time consuming.
And if I do want to increase the gain - by how much? The amp is 120 watt/ch/8ohm, speakers are 89db efficient, 8ohm.

If it's all loud enough for you to listen to and all output to input impedances are a good match  (>1-10 ratio) Then no, all he would do to get more gain is to reduce the feedback, and this has it's own problems. (eg: distortion, damping factor ect) 

But if your phono stage is tube and maybe high output impedance with capacitor coupling, then this could be the problem, what is your phono stage, make and model? And what is your amp?

Cheers George