Benz Ebony LP loading

When I first had the Benz LP new, I used 390 or 410 I forgot what the Aesthetix IO setting was, however I now use 1000ohms and it seems to work perfectly. I have not tried higher numerically numbers since the 1000 seems fine to me.

The users manual states >500 to 47K ohm.
Ciao,
Audioquest4life

If your experimentations with gain does not reveal satisfying results, I would look at the finer details of the mounting of the benz LP. I have commented before in other posts, the LP is sensitive to tracking force and also to VTA. If the LP is setup to play for 140-160 gram records and you set a 200gram on it, I do notice changes in performances, causing me to either lower tracking force due to increased thickness of the record (As per Michael Fremers' tip on the Vinyl essentials DVD), altering VTA to some small degree. This minor tweak does work and it seems like a trivial matter, but believe me, I have experiemented with this same cartridge from break-in to loading and tracking force/VTA settings to extract the best I could get. It is difficult to adjust VTA on the fly with the SME V tonearm I use now, but I set it to get the best parameters with a wide variety of records and using the MF tweak as needed. Try it out, it works for me and I find that dialing in a TF about 1- 1 1/2 grams lighter makes the thicker LP's come alive.

Of course your mileage may vary (YMMV).
Ciao,
Audioquest4life

Hi Markd51,

That is what I was saying to do, back off the tracking force from whatever setting you are using now and do it gradually. I may have gotten a little long winded in my last post trying to explain all of the minute things I have experimented with to get this cartridge to sound its best, and when it does, you will know. I think the Lp is a sensitive cartidge and dialing it in takes some trial and error. I love sharing information with others who need help or have not tried things I did to make something work right.

Bottom line, yes, back off to about 1.7gm and listen to an LP, the same one preferrably and at the same place on the LP, take something you will want to reference with a wide dynamic range if possible to hear some cymbals, horns and drums. Then get a reference point and make your adjustment. Make sure you know what your initial tracking force setting was and then start experimenting. You may want to make a bold adjustment to see if there is a change in the sound characteristic at first instead of making all of the minute changes. I am interested in finding out what the cause could be, because I felt I had the same experience with some LP's that varied in thickness and this became even more noticeable as I put more hours on the LP.

Good luck,
Audioquest4life