Concur with the above. I borrowed a Hagerman Cornet from the main system fed directly into Crack. Then later built Seduction. Both worked perfectly fine direct in to Crack. I added FPIII with an eye toward adding an amp and speakers to this system. But, not needing to swap cables was a nice benefit (I use 3 sources with Crack) while I work on the speaker setup. I do take advantage of FPIII for a little more gain for phono sometimes but it isnt necessary.