Ortofon Per Windfeld Load Impedance?

Zieman,
I don't want to embarrass you further but the impedance of any phono cable is negligible. I'm sure you don't know this based on your posts.

Most phono cables have impedances of well under 2 ohms; some are as low as 0.15 ohms (Zu Xaus).

The only time the phono cable impedance comes into play is when it's value exceeds the internal impedance of the cartridge. Which is seldom and never.

The bottom line is to ignore phono cable impedance.

Check this out with any cartridge, phono stage, or cable designer. I hope you learn something from this.

Now the question is, how do you fit both hands in your mouth where both feet seem to reside frequently.

Audiofeil, In fairness, Zieman may have been thinking of cable capacitance, which does play a role in loading the cartridge but which is less of an issue with MC cartridges, as opposed to MMs. "Impedance" comes from both resistance and reactance, the latter due to capacitance or inductance, which I am sure you know. So the pure DC resistance of a phono cable does not tell the whole story.

On another note, where are Ortofon cartridges manufactured? I'm used to thinking of them as English, but I may be wrong. Maybe Japan?

Fail, the whole world is at 100 or less. You, all alone at double that. Same story different product... By the time you assemble a system, every parameter an order of magnitude in the wrong direction, explains, perhaps, why you also drive a 40 year old car... Get your ears cleaned and tested, send me the bill if you don't have coverage. We would welcome you to the same (front) page club.

I routinely change loading with different phono cables. The differences are not subtle. Perhaps Fail can clear this up, I was pretty sure the cartridge is the only thing driving the cable?

FWIW when you have a loading resistance of only 100 ohms, the capacitance of the cable can be neglected. To illustrate this point, even if your capacitance was as high as 0.001uf, the frequencies affected would be measured in MHz.

There **might** be some audible quality of the cable, but in the case of a 100 (or even 500) ohm loading value, the capacitance of the cable will have nothing to do with it.

Result: you can ignore the phono cable as a variable.

I recommend against using the cartridge loading as a tone control. Instead, the cartridge should be loaded to what is known as 'critical damping'. This is the point wherin the loading value damps ringing, but does not roll off the normal response of the cartridge. An excellent way to do this is to 'ring' the cartridge with a squarewave generator and observe the output on an oscilloscope. A ringing waveform will be seen in an unloaded cartridge. Installing a loading resistance will reduce the ringing until a bare amount of overshoot is seen, this will be at or near critical damping.

Once this is done the cartridge can be installed in the arm without fear that the arm or interconnect will be affecting the determined value. Once the cartridge is then set up properly and broken in, then and only then can the phono interconnect be evaluated. **If you use the loading value to 'tune' the phono cable, you are introducing colorations!** I considered capitalizing that but I don't like to shout.