Chapter 7Overload matters (phono headroom)

(Electronics World, February 1997)

Intended title: Signal Levels from Vinyl Discs

There are usually no gain controls on Moving-Magnet (MM) RIAA inputs. Switched gains are encountered occasionally, but I don’t think I have ever seen an input stage with continuously variable gain achieved by altering the negative feedback. This is because it is relatively difficult to design a fixed-gain RIAA network, if you are doing it properly with all the RIAA equalisation performed in one stage. Distributing the RIAA equalisation across two or even more stages makes the mathematics simple, which is why this stupid notion is as popular as it is, but leads inevitably to serious compromises in noise and/or headroom. ...

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