Which is why you should invest in a standalone phono preamp. They’re rarely if ever as accomplished as a purpose built off board phono stage. More often than not, it’ll be built to a price, probably just a few bucks in terms of manufacturing cost. Thing is, this phono preamp – be it in the deck or the amp – has a disproportionate influence on the sound of your turntable. If your deck does have a phono stage, it’ll output your rock‘n’roll at line level, so you’ll be able to connect it to whatever RCA input you want on your amplifier. If you were to plug your turntable directly into the same place, skipping the phono stage, any sound produced would be very reedy, very thin and stupidly quiet.Ī growing number of turntables, including many of the best budget turntables like the versatile Sony PS-HX500, come with built-in phono stages but others, like the similarly excellent Rega Planar 1, do not. If your turntable doesn’t have a built-in phono stage, you’ll need to connect it to a dedicated phono input input on your amp. The signal created by a cartridge is only around five or six millivolts (think Little Mix), but your amplifier needs something 300 times louder (think Metallica). A phono preamp also performs something magical called RIAA Equalisation, which compensates for the treble hike and bass cut that takes place during the disc mastering process. The job of a phono preamp is to amplify the tiny signal generated by the record deck’s phono cartridge as it tracks a disc, to line level. Yes, this is a buyer’s guide for something you don’t need to buy. But that doesn’t mean you won’t want to buy one.
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This may well prompt you to ask: if it’s already built-in, why do I need to buy another one? In truth, you don’t.
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For the most part, you’ll not even be aware it’s there because it's built-in, hidden under the hood, either in the record deck itself or your integrated stereo amplifier. A phono preamp (Hi-Fi dudes often like to call them a Phono Stage, probably because it sounds more musical) is an integral part of any record system.