Volume deprivation with turntable

[mjekot]

Hi all,

Been a while since I posted as my Crack has been plugging away flawlessly since I finished it last summer. That is the good part.

I decided to hook up my Technics SL-1900 turntable and give some of the vinyl that I received for the holiday. The turntable RCA cables went into the RCA inputs on the Crack as they should. I did not hook up the Ground since there is no provision for it in the Crack.........?

Turned on the Crack and I could not hear anything at the normal listening level. I had to turn the Crack all the way up and I was able to hear a very faint sound from the album.

Am I missing something, or should I be investigation a small turntable pre-amp? If this is the direction I should be going, I would love some recommendations on what to look at.

If I am off base here, someone school me!

Thanks again Happy Crack People

[galyons]

To play vinyl you need a phono stage. The phono stage serves two critical functions:

• Reverse the RIAA equalization for playback.
• Raise the signal to line level.

Without the phono stage the output of the cartridge is too low and signal is highly distorted.  BH has some great phono stages.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but just the Crack won't do the job!

Cheers,
Geary

[mjekot]

Thanks for the reply. It sounds like I was on the right track with this one. Question: Phono Stage and Preamp. Kind of one in the same???

Thoughts on the NAD PP2 or PP2i?

[Paul Birkeland]

A phono stage typically has 40-70dB of gain and will flatten out the frequency response of your vinyl records.  Low frequencies on LP's are attenuated to both reduce the width of the groove in the record, and stylus wear.  The treble is hotter which reduces the proportion of surface noise to music. 

A preamp is simply an amplifier that works on line level signals (not speaker level).

The PP2 or PP2i ought to work just fine for your purposes.

[Chris]

uh yes... If you have a crack built already, just get BH's phono amp to match and you have similar esthetics and sonic pedigree to boot....

[mjekot]

Thanks for the answers all. On to the next project it seems😀