Koetsu Urushi + MC step up transformer


After years of listening to my Koetsu Urushi fed directly into the 47K MM input of a Conrad Johnson PF1 I have started using a step up transformer. It is built around a pair of Lundahl transformers and I have tried some different loading resistors but I find the sound is quite harsh and has lost some of the air and space it had before.

I was told that the transformers would need 50-100 hours of bedding in and they would loose the harshness... Hmmm. I've never been a great believer in the burn-in philosophy for entirely passive components - like bits of wire - will a MC transformer burn-in to any extent or should I continue playing with the loading to find the best match or just toss the whole thing out the window?
68spider
OK here's the specifics of the set up so far:

Lundahl LL1681 MC transformers using the 13:1 tap.
With a primary resistance of 9.6 ohms and a secondary resistance of 1640 ohms, courtesy of K & K I get:

Req Load......Resistance
50..................15600
75..................24114
100................35310
125................50689
150................73135
175................108974

I've only got a couple of resistors to hand so I've only played around with parallel resistances of 18K, 47K (and 13K and 65K if you do the maths). None of them sound good.

Given the relationship of input:output load being the square of the step up ratio I can't see how I can get my Urushi to "see" the sweet 47K it used to?
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Nsgarch, You wrote, "spider, the values one uses to match a MC cart to a SUT have nothing to do with the load resistance you would use if connecting the cartridge to a phono preamp or headamp." Are you suggesting that my advice in my previous post was completely incorrect? If so, I'd like to know, because I hate to think I've misinformed spider (or anyone else). When he bought the Lundahls (presumably from K&K), I presume that they knew how he was going to use them and that therefore the ones he's got are already a reasonable match gain-wise for the Urushi playing into the CJ.
Re your last post, the consensus among us other users of the Urushi is that you would be best off with a load of ~100ohms. If you really want 47K ohms, then just off the top of my pointy head you will need to replace the 47K resistor at the input of the CJ with a very much larger one; the value would be 169 X 47K (given your reported 13:1 turns ratio), nearly 10 Megohms! You may as well try 10M. I don't recommend it but try it if you are convinced that the cartridge performed best into 47K ohms load. You are not alone in this belief; Allen Wright, a well-respected designer and manufacturer runs all his LOMCs into 47K. You need either to remove the stock 47K load resistor entirely and replace it with 10M or to place 10M in series with the 47K one.
Lew, probably what I should have said was that it takes different value resistors (across the transformer taps) to achieve the same load conditions for the cartridge as if it was simply driving a phono preamp. So your explanation of how to load the SUT seems perfectly logical to me, but then I've never tried to do it, so I have no credibility whatsoever ;-)
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I just did not want to be the dispenser of incorrect information. I've never used a SUT either, but I came close at one point and read some of the excellent white papers on the Jensen website at that time, to gain what little knowledge I have on the subject.

Spider, I hope it's clear in all this that the circuit should be as follows: cartridge to transformer to load resistor, so that the load resistance is on the other side of the transformer with respect to the cartridge and replaces the built-in load resistor in the preamp. To really make it simple, you could just leave the 47K resistor in place. With your transformers, that would result in a very acceptable load on the Urushi of about 200 ohms. (I'm too lazy to do the math.)