I think you should also order a variety of other values, just to try different degrees of loading. You could buy cheap resistors for the basic experiment before buying pricier models. With some cartridges, there will be not much difference between 390 and 1000 or even 47,000 ohms--these all represent somewhat low amount of loading. Resistors in the 125-150 ohm range and perhaps one with as low a value as 50 ohms would let you see what much more loading does to the sound (the lower the value the higher the loading).
Best resistors for use in phono stage?
It wondering if there's a better SQ resistor for this purpose? My new to me phone stage has a slot to try custom values. I need 380 and or 390 ohm. Thanks for the help.
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@larryi , As far as values go, I'm going by my experience with my other phono preamp and what Peter recommends for the Sussurro. I had always been satisfied with 390 ohms with my other phono preamp. My feeling upon hearing my current 400 ohm resistor is that I'm very close. Satisfying my curiosity with what I've experienced and what Peter recommends. |
Some like no added loading at all. Jonathan Carr, the designer of Lyra cartridges advocates no added loading, provided that the downstream electronics can withstand the ultrasonic peak that will be passed through without overloading. In that sense, the phono stage does matter. That overload can also come from RFI that is picked up by the cartridge and the phono cabling. A friend had a preamp that had a fairly bad problem with noise (not hum or powerline noise) which he asked me to help him alleviate. I could tell that it was RFI being turned into audible noise. When we checked the loading of the phono stage, it turned out that the manufacturer default setting was 100k (i.e., very little loading), and when we switched to 1k, the noise went away without much other change in the sound. |
- 52 posts total