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Cartridge incompatibility, Soundsmith and Luxman

I have a Soundsmith Zephyr MIMC Star cartridge that sound really amazing, but I just changed to a Luxman L-590AXII and the gain and loading is fixed.

Output/loading for cartridge: 0.4mV, recommended load resistance 470 ohm

Input sensitivity/impedence for the amp: 0.3mV, 100 ohm

 

The gain should be ok, but the load is way off and you can clearly hear it. The highs are rolled off and I need to crank up the volume to be acceptable level.

 

So here's the question... what cartridge would work in this setup? Would love to keep the Soundsmith, but I'm not going to add SUT with additional cables and all that complexity.

128x128audiojan

Showing 3 responses by atmasphere

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,608 posts
 

@audiojan You might want to take a look at this website

http://hagtech.com/loading

Since your cartridge is a low output, scroll down to where the low output calculator is.

I dropped the values of your cartridge (2.75mH) and input load (0.1KOhms or 100 Ohms) and it spits out a rolloff value of only about 5KHz. That might sound rolled off 🙂

So you either need a different cartridge or modify the input load to be something higher. I put in the the 470 Ohm value as recommended and the rolloff changes to 27KHz!

So I think we found the problem.

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,608 posts
 

Yes, MC setting. The load is not variable however, I think this is what's causing the issue.

Based on all I've read, I think you are correct.

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,608 posts
 

The gain should be ok, but the load is way off and you can clearly hear it. The highs are rolled off and I need to crank up the volume to be acceptable level.

@audiojan 

Are you using the 'MC' setting on the front panel of the Luxman?

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