Would a turntable without a preamp hooked into a receiver be audible?

[Espo]

Hi, new to the forum and analog music, so I hope this is the right place.

 

I have an old turntable, preamp, receiver, and speaker, hooked into each other in that order. If I remove the preamp, the speaker can still play the audio, but it is definitely much quieter. My question is, does this mean that my turntable has a preamp in it? And if so, is using both preamps going to cause a distorted sound, due to the equalization it does to undo the RIAA curve? And the receiver has a preamp in it too, right? So could that possibly be a third preamp in the mix?

 

I apologize if these are beginner questions, I've been doing as much reading as I can but these are the questions I'm left with.

 

Thank you

[Espo]

I've answered some of my questions:

 

The receiver does not have a Phono input, just "CD", "TV/AUX", "TAPE", and "VCR". I have been using the AUX input, which from what I understand is a clean, line level input - which is exactly what a phono preamp converts a phono input into, right? So turntable > preamp > receiver only involves a single phono preamp, as long as the turntable does not have a preamp.

 

But since my speakers could play my turntable's signal without the external preamp, does that mean the turntable actually does include a preamp? The volume wasn't very audible under ~ 15, and the max volume (63) was a normal listening volume, I'd say. Is it safe to say that that means there is no preamp, but the receiver alone was able to boost the phono signal enough to an audible level?

[Jud]

Depends on what kind of cartridge you have. Some phono cartridges have high enough output that they don't need a phono preamp.

[AudioDoctor]

 Crank the volume and tell me what you hear. My guess is you won’t like it because your turntable has no RIAA equalization inside it. 

[Jud]

If you want an inexpensive phono preamp of decent quality: https://www.schiit.com/products/mani?Finish=412&AC Adapter=147&

 

(There may well be others, but that’s the one I’ve heard of.)

[Espo]

Thank you all for the information. I've read a lot more and now feel as though I have a much better understanding. However, I still have one area that needs clarification.

 

I understand that I need the phono preamp that's between my turntable and my receiver, for both the RIAA equalization, and the signal boost to line level, since my receiver has no phono input.

 

However, I recently discovered that there's a difference between a "phono preamp" and a "preamp." Does this mean that my receiver has a preamp inside of it, which doesn't do any RIAA equalization, but does boost it to something higher than line level? And would that go into a power amp inside of the receiver to boost it to speaker level?

[GUTB]

Yes, a receiver would have a preamp inside. Any kind of amp with a volume control has a preamp circuit built in. Also, the correct terminology is a "phono" or "phono stage", you don't normally refer to it also as a preamp, although technically they do have gain adjustments. So it looks like this:

 

Cart => phono => preamp => amp

or

Cart => phono => receiver 

 

For advanced applications you can also add a SUT:

 

MC cart => SUT => phono => etc

 

Phono stages deal with very small signals and their gain and loadings have to be set correctly for the given cart. Most modern phonos will have the appropriate settings but you'll have to check to make sure you pick the right ones for the cart in use.

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, GUTB said:

Any kind of amp with a volume control has a preamp circuit built in

 Not necessarily . You don't really need one unless you have several input sources 

[sandyk]

On 12/27/2020 at 8:31 AM, Espo said:

But since my speakers could play my turntable's signal without the external preamp, does that mean the turntable actually does include a preamp? The volume wasn't very audible under ~ 15, and the max volume (63) was a normal listening volume, I'd say. Is it safe to say that that means there is no preamp, but the receiver alone was able to boost the phono signal enough to an audible level?

If the sound was tonally balanced, then there would have been an internal RIAA Phono Preamp

Many Phono Preamps only had an output level of a couple of hundred mV, compared with the 2V from CD.

 Other sources such as Tape and FM stereo also had lower level outputs . Many earlier Preamps often attenuated the CD input for this reason.