Agree - I run my turntable (MM admittedly) to a zen phono then balanced output directly to the miniDSP Flex (Balanced) ... no issues, works lovely
If you don't have a phono pre-amp you may want to try what I do which is run a short cable from TT to a balanced transmitter (modified with 47K input impedance) and then from balanced transmitter to ADC and do RIAA digitally. Works very well for me and is cheap. For balanced transmitter this is the one I built, just changed input resistors to 47K
YMMV depending on the rest of the setup. The cartridge's specs are at 5cm/sec, but hot inner grooves can be several times higher than this. 4mV to 5mV does not represent peaks. If you're running a low-ish output MM like 3.5mV, or in the example of the iFi Zen Phono running 36 dB instead of 40, you might not ever clip. I have definitely clipped using a 5mV cart on inner grooves with 40dB. Clipping won't be constant obviously, and may not even be common. But it's easily avoidable.
).maybe you're listening to overload on the phono preamp ... the cartridge with 5mv output needs spectacular cantilever movement to generate 10mv with groove oscilation (a "pop" from dirt is another stuff, but is not something continous ... throw the record to the trash can otherwise
as an example, i remember the mofi studio phono worked well with mofi cartridges (AT based) ... it not worked good with a higher output cartridge like Ortofon Blue (was recognized by Mofi itself, then i returned the preamp).
My TT goes to a balanced transmitter to get the proper cartridge impedance loading and then to an ADC. I have been reading about 20 dB of headroom beyond the peak music level which always seemed extreme to me. RME with their new DAC / ADC with phono input claims 6 dB of headroom is enough and my experiments so far indicate that is about right. When you are capturing at 24 bit depth you can turn the ACD input volume down a little and have no problem capturing anything a phono cart can throw at it. I have been experimenting with some damaged records and the most I have seen out of a very loud "pop" (bad enough to cause the record to get stuck) is only about 6 dB beyond music peaks. For normal undamaged records music peaks are far louder than any noise. As far as I can tell a regular ADC (Scarlet and the like) has plenty of gain and headroom to be used with a MM cart. For a MC cart I use a SUT before the ADC.
audiosciencereview.com
I was referring to the Flex under discussion. Its analog input has to be 2 volts or less. Someone recently quoted a suggested overload margin in a phono preamp as 26 db. Doing math. 10 to the x where x = 26/20 = 19.95 or 20 rounded up. For a 5 mv cartridge at 40 db gain (times 100) = .5 volts nominal times 20 = 10 volts peak output before the phono preamp clips. This is 5 times the max input allowed on the Flex. If we back off some and go with 20 db overload margin on the phono preamp - more math yields 5 volts peak out of same setup - .5 mv at 40 db gain phono. This is still 2.5 times max signal allowed with the Flex.
I'm trying to get my turntable (u-turn orbit) connected to my sonos and I've been looking at upgrading my cheap amazon/ebay rca to optical ADC after reading the review https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...s/unbranded-adc-from-ebay-measurements.23962/ I'm not too sure if it'll make a difference, but I have noticed certain records sound a bit muffled, not too sure if that's attributable to the rolloff at lower frequenciesi saw that but my turntable also has an integrated pluto phono amp which seems to work well enough, so rather just get a cheaper ADC without preamp capabilities if possible
My thinking is I wouldn't dream of trying to do an internal mod (and I've had a 35 year carreer in electronics development). Just use an external ADC.
I have been doing the "TT to ADC " for quite some time. I would recommend a external ADC like the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 or similar. One thing to keep in mind is that in order to get this to work you really need the "input volume controls" on the ADC.
