How annoying. I used mine with a Creek passive and (briefly) with a borrowed older Rothwell Indus (he still makes these, the old ones can be had quite cheap). They both worked fine, although neither of them had built in phono. Maybe worth trying an active pre with adjustable output sensitivity - Rega used to supply the Cursa 2000 as a passive (which maybe was a special order), or as standard at a range of outputs from 0.25v upwards, adjustable by internal dip switches, and it has a decent phono stage (and a decent gain structure - the volume control is quite smart, it deliberately gives you more range at the lower end). You should be able to find one of those for not too much money secondhand. I heard a Cursa into a Stereo 20 and refurbed ESL57s at one of Terry Bateman's Leak fests a few years back at Roy Gandy's house, and it sounded fantastic.