Why wont my amp blast my lps

[Blazing247]

Hi all,

I have a technics sl-210 turntable connected to a teac ag-790 amp with a dedicated phono input. The amp is a bit of a monster and will shake the house on cds etc but with the turntable it just wont give anywhere near the volume I know it should. I know that amps without a phono input need a pre-amp to boost the input but this has a phono input. When playing a cd if you have the volume at 30 it is blasting and you can hear it down the road but with lps it needs to be up there to get above quiet. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks all

Jim

 

[tomlinscote]

Looked up the Teac's manual to see if there was a MM or MC setting but it was not much help. Do you know if the TT op is MM or MC because there is a difference between the outputs one being a llot lower than the other, I think that Moving Coil has the lower output but is less common??

 

[respe]

No phono stage (or at least a in built one) that I can think off will take a phono signal to anything approaching the output level of a CD player. In a few systems the CD output level is just to high. You also have to factor in the output of the cart, they can vary from 1.5 or so to 6 mv. Resultingly the amp itself will need to have more gain applied to bring vinyl up to CD levels through the speakers. It can not therefore give the levels you ''know'' it should from vinyl. From what you have said your neighbours are probably thankful. 🙂

 

[Blazing247]

Dont know I'm affraid. Like you say there is not much info in the manual. All I can find for the amp is

input sensitivity PHONO 6.5 mV/22kohms LINE 230mV/22kohms

frequency response PHONO 20Hz to 20kHz, +/- 3db LINE 20Hz to 35kHz -3db

All that means nowt to me but someone in the know may have an idea!

 

[Blazing247]

Luckily for all we live in the middle of nowhere

 

[Blazing247]

Will fitting a pre amp then increase the volume. It really does need something as if you try and crank up the volume just now it becomes very distorted and the speakers start to hum and vibrate.

 

[altruistic.lemon]

What cartridge are you using?

 

[Blazing247]

It is an EPC-P30 cartridge

 

[stevebrock]

When I far my Rega RP1 TT with Ortofon om5e cart had to have to volume on my Brio between 10-11 o clock, since owning my RP3/Elys 2 I know use the sane volume levels that I use for CD - which is 9 o clock and that's plenty loud enough so it may be the cartridge is shot

 

[Blazing247]

Does that mean replacing the stylus or the whole cartridge?

 

[stevebrock]

Whole cartridge - Ortofon Red 2m would be good

 

[respe]

the red is not that clever, the blue is better.

 

[altruistic.lemon]

Cartridges don't tend to have a standard output, and that's part of your problem. The second bit is that their output is less than CD anyway, so you'll always need to boost the volume if you want the same level of sound. The other option is to buy a phono preamp that can boost the signal to the same as CD - I think Clearaudio and some others make them.

 

[Blazing247]

just ordered a very cheap pre amp to see if that works before I spend any real money on a good one. We will see.

 

[Blazing247]

I presume that if I am using a pre amp I shouldnt use the phono input on the amp as it will be too much input power, or does it not matter?

 

[RobinKidderminster]

Blue & red have double the output voltage of your existing model but very different budget

 

[iMark]

Blue & red have double the output voltage of your existing model but very different budget

But if you have a red, you can easily upgrade later to blue by replacing the stylus. The red and blue stylus are interchangeable. That's my next upgrade. 🙂

 

[Al ears]

If you use a preamp plug it into a spare line-in pair and not the phono input.