The 50 dB includes the line stage at the output of the phono stage. It was intended with the stand-alone unit, that it would feed a line preamp with 20 dB or so gain but people seemed to want a phono preamp that could drive power amps through a passive control unit or directly. In any case, I can always offer the Ultra 4A (Phono 4A?) as a phono-only preamp with 50 dB gain, without any controls. Problem is, it isn't much costlier to add some line inputs and controls as in the Ultra 4A.
Lloyd