Note / AI Disclosure: This page is unrelated to my law practice, and I'm not affiliated with or endorsed by any manufacturer, brand, or retailer. I used AI tools to help build this page and to aggregate specs from public sources (e.g., manufacturer websites/datasheets, manuals, forums, etc.). I do my best to review things, but some details may be wrong, incomplete, inconsistent, or change over time, so please confirm anything important with the manufacturer or original source. Use this as hobby reference material at your own risk. One extra caution: if you ask an AI to "verify" these specs, it may cite my site as the source, so make sure you're verifying the original source, not my aggregation.

Phono Stage Overload (Clipping) Calculator

Matching a cartridge to a preamp is about more than just “Moving Magnet vs. Moving Coil.” It’s about headroom. Some high‑output cartridges can push a budget phono stage into distortion if the input stage doesn’t have enough overload margin.

Pick a cartridge and a phono preamp below. The tool will try to estimate headroom using published output voltage and any listed max input / input sensitivity. If a spec isn’t available, you can enter it manually in “Advanced”.

Cartridge

Select a cartridge to see its rated output voltage.

Phono preamp

Select a preamp to see any published max input / sensitivity.

Select a cartridge + preamp to calculate headroom.

Select a cartridge + preamp
Advanced: manual inputs & assumptions

Published “output voltage” is typically measured at 1 kHz with a standardized groove velocity (often 5 cm/s). Real records can have peaks above that, so this tool includes an optional peak factor to stress‑test headroom.

2× ≈ +6 dB (a “loud record” sanity check).
Used only when a preamp lists input sensitivity but not max input.
Example: 7.0
Example: 3.5
If you know the true overload spec, use this.
Some preamps publish overload/sensitivity per input type.
Data sources & reference links

Links to the public product pages/manuals used to compile the reference database. If a model has no link, I couldn’t find a stable primary source at the time.

Cartridges

    Phono preamps