ART DJ Pre II Turntable Phono Preamplifier with RIAA EQ and a RCA Male to 2 RCA Male Audio Cable 3'

***** Update after adding extra ground wire (noted below) *****To recap: Had some hum with my 1960's Thorens belt drive turntable I attributed to the need for an additional ground wire from the preamp to the AV receiver. Added that ground wire and hum has disappeared. Reason for the preamp is standard RIAA functionality has disappeared from most AV receivers.So now I have a ground wire from the tonearm to the preamp and, on the same preamp lug, a second ground wire from the preamp to the AV receiver. Added a washer or two to the preamp lug to get everything snugged down without spreading / distorting the spade lugs.Issue was finding a place on the AV receiver to mount the other end of the lug for ground wire #2. I didn't want to completely remove a screw and find I couldn't get it back in due to something shifting inside the AV receiver. So somewhere near the CD RCA jacks (I'm using these for the phono preamp line out) I found a screw I could back out, get the spade lug behind, and tighten sufficiently. Hum was gone.Try at your own risk RE: messing with your AV receiver.***** End Update *****Agree, the blue LED is annoyingly bright. An on / off switch would be nice. Past that, my only gripe is you need to buy a ground wire to go from the preamp to the receiver chassis and there is no explanation of when to use the 100 vs. 200 pF setting. More on that later. On the 5 star front, the unit is well built, easy to install, seems to do a reasonable job of RIAA equalization (as compared to same song on high resolution MP3). Let's get to the ground wire. I'm playing a mid-60's Thorens TD-150 (first? commercial belt drive turntable) and depending on how I place and wiggle things I will get a heart beat more than getting a hum with the tonearm grounded to the preamp but the preamp not grounded to the receiver. Ordered extra grounding wire to complete the circuit and will update on the results. Played an album I got recently as part of a VIP concert package. It was obviously digitally remastered and there was absolutely no hiss or noise added by the preamp. Gain knob and clipping light is nice. This is Moving Magnet only. Look elsewhere for Moving Coil preamps. Back to the pico Farads setting -- regardless of MM or MC, you have inductance from a coil (L), resistance from wire (R) and capacitance (C) from parallel wires in there to tune an LRC circuit (low-pass I imagine -- the opposite of the hi-pass rumble filter). With no instructions in the manual, I'd take your youngest female (best high frequency hearing) and have them tell you which sounds best. Make sure you use a non-AM-top-40 sound source as they always boost highs. Some cartridges may provide the optimal pF load in their documentation. Nice unit overall.

Amazing little pre-amp. I had some issues getting my Mac to recognize my AT USB turntable so I had to do an analog hookup. Which is actually better because it gives me some control between the AT and the Mac software. This amp is connected between and run to a Behringer 202 USB interface. Works perfect. Gives me total control over the recording levels for Audacity. The only issue is the "power on" indicator light. Extremely bright blue. Blindingly bright. I put black electric tape over it. Not a big deal but just saying. The other one is I don't understand the 100pf and 200pf input cap. There's literallly no difference that I can hear. Not sure why it's there. Low Cut filter probably good for warped records.Overall it's an excellent unit. I'm a retired engineer (manfacturing) and I'm surprised in the workmanship and quality. The controls have a good quality feel. I was surprised."...buy one today!" "....be the first on your block!" :-)Edit: I fixed the super bright blue LED power indicator. I opened it and installed a 33k ohm resistor to reduce the current. Perfect now.

Works great, boosts phono signal for use with modern receivers nicely. Gain knob and cut buttons work as intended. Functionally nothing to complain about, it does what I wanted it to do, and does it well.The downside is the little LEDs on this thing are BRIGHT. and there is no way to turn them off. There's also no power switch on the unit. So, if you're piggybacking power off your receiver, no big deal, the lights go on/off with the receiver power. However, I had this connected to a small shelf stereo, with no power piggyback, and so I had this plugged directly into the wall, and the bright blue and yellow lights run 24/7 unless you yank the power cord out. Annoying to have these vibrant lights running constantly even when the device is not in use. Minor annoyance, but it drove me crazy enough that I ended up tracking down an older used receiver with a proper phono input when we rearranged the furniture and now no longer use this device.

Being an old guy, I have lots of LPs that date back to the 60's and earlier. When I decided to reactivate my turntable, I found that my more modern amplifier wasn't able to hear it. I needed a preamplifier. I did about 2 days worth of studying and reading reviews, and this one seemed the most honest product. When I finally installed it and turned it on, I was amazed that the sound coming from my old turntable was better than it ever was in the old days, or even current versions on digital. I didn't believe that LP might be cleaner and higher fidelity than digital until I heard this product work. And, for the price, it allows a little control that I couldn't get from most other ones.The only flaw I could find is the power supply. It's reasonable to convert to 12 volt, but how about an on/off switch? I have to unplug it in order to shut it off when I'm not using it.