Best place to connect phono preamp to Fisher 500C?

The Fisher 500C has a phono input, but it is designed for moving magnet type output levels, whereas your Linn cartridge has a much lower output. With your current equipment, probably the simplest thing to do is to plug the Linn arm output into your Naim 42 Preamp phono input, which is presumably designed to take the low output of the Linn cartridge and amplify and EQ it to a line level, then take the OUTPUT (either line output or tape output) of the Naim preamp into the Aux input of the Fisher. IIRC Naim likes to use DIN cables for all their inputs and outputs, so you will have to get a DIN to RCA converter cable to go from the Naim preamp into the Fisher.

The other alternative is to get a MC transformer or head amp to amplify the output of the Linn cartridge to a level that it can be input into the phono section of the FIsehr. However, you should be warned that the Fisher phono preamp is not up to modern standards in terms of RIAA EQ accuracty, being rolled off in the midbass and bass (sloping down from around 100-200 Hz to approximately 2 dB down at 50 Hz, and several more dB down at 20 Hz), which will tend to make the sound somewhat thin.

I don't know who suggested using the tape ouput of the Fisher as an input but whoever it was doesn't know what he or she is talking about. The tape OUTPUT of the Fisher is designed to send a signal (FM or phono) OUT to an external tape recorder, hence the OUTPUT designation. It is not designed as an INPUT, which is what you want to do to with the signal from your LP12/external phono stage.

I use my Linn LP-12 with a Fisher 400. I bought a step up preamp from KAB and he modified it to boost the .23mV output of my Dyna 17D2 to the 4.5mV needed by the Fisher. Works great. The Fisher is great at preserving the PRaT from the LP12.

I owned a Fisher 500C for a year, and enjoyed it a great deal.

(The following is recycled material from two years ago when I owned the Fisher. It is posted at www.audioasylum.com in the vintage asylum. There are some Fisher experts there, and lots of good info in the archives.)

"A few days ago someone asked how many line level inputs a Fisher 500C can handle. The answer is two.
I have a cd recorder that I connect to the tape in and tape out on the fisher. Today, I hooked up a spare tuner I have into the Fisher's AUX input. The tuner plays with the selector switch on tape. The cd player plays via the tape monitor.

An odd thing with the CD recorder is that if it is not powered on while listening to phono or FM, then the sound is very garbled. You can imagine the grief I went through before making that discovery! "

So, hook up the cd player to tape mon (definitely not tape out!), and the phono preamp into aux. You can listen to CD player via the tape monitor regardless of the position of the input selector, and to phono with the selector on tape - aux and the tape monitor off. Just make sure to leave your CD player on if the sound is garbled when listening to FM or phono.

Thank you everyone for all of the excellent information! It never ceases to amaze me how much knowledge can be found in these forums. I ended up buying a seperate phono preamp and have found the gain to be excellent. Thanks again!