I still maintain-righty or wrongly-that two things are at play with loading. One can argue that they are interrelated. One is preventing ringing/overload and another is changing the magnetically induced behavior of the cantilever.
My own misstatements about higher loading values being the same as higher loading is a common one and a common source of confusion. I think that the confusion stems from loading being nothing more than a resistor placed between the signal wires-left and right-and ground. A high value resistor such as 47K means less loading because the circuit is left relatively open. The cartridge/cantilever sees no electro-magnetic mechanical "constraint" because the resistor is to ground. Conversely, a low resistor value comes close to a short circuit/complete connection between signal and ground causing the cantilever to become electromechanically constrained.
Ralph and others talk about the cartridge/cantilever having "to do more work" at higher loading. Ralph explains;
My own misstatements about higher loading values being the same as higher loading is a common one and a common source of confusion. I think that the confusion stems from loading being nothing more than a resistor placed between the signal wires-left and right-and ground. A high value resistor such as 47K means less loading because the circuit is left relatively open. The cartridge/cantilever sees no electro-magnetic mechanical "constraint" because the resistor is to ground. Conversely, a low resistor value comes close to a short circuit/complete connection between signal and ground causing the cantilever to become electromechanically constrained.
Ralph and others talk about the cartridge/cantilever having "to do more work" at higher loading. Ralph explains;
Of course if you use the loading resistor option, you are asking the cartridge to do more work. If you're using 100 ohms as a loading resistor, that's a couple of orders of magnitude more work than if the cartridge is driving 47K. This results in the cantilever being stiffer- the same as what happens with a raw woofer if you short it out (they are both based on the same principle of operation). This is not a matter of debate, if you feel the desire to do so, take it up with Mr. Ohm. Ohm's Law cannot be defeated and isn't open to interpretation. If there is more current flowing, it has to come from somewhere and that somewhere is the motion of the stylus in the groove. So the fact that the cantilever gets stiffer is not controversial. Anyone versed in the art knows this- Jonathan Carr and I discussed this issue at the Munich Show a few years ago.I will freely confess that I thought the loose and flabby sound I heard with the 25 and 50 ohm settings on my Steelhead was the result of a LESS STIFF cantilever and not a too-stiff cantilever as Ralph explains above. It does make sense-once one understands the higher resistor value being to ground-that the lower resistor value approaches a short circuit and that the cantilever becomes stiffer and less damped, not less stiff and more damped. Damping is the absorption/dissipation of energy. You all know that. Why a less damped cantilever results in loose, flabby sound and a highly damped cantilever results in lifeless sound is still a tough concept for me to get my head around. I think I know what Ralph means when he speaks of the cartridge and cantilever having "to do more work" with higher loading by using his raw woofer analogy and imagining having to create an electric signal by applying more mechanical force-not less-pushing on a close to a short-circuited and electromagnetically stiffened woofer cone to generate a given amount of electrical output but still-this does little to explain why a less damped (stiffer) cantilever sounds livelier and why a highly damped (loose) cantilever sounds lifeless.