Questions about a new Ruby 2 cartridge

aw darn...i just read my pass info on the ono, and it was for mm that they provided room to play. it looks as though for mc i am limited and can only go up from 1000 to 47k. oh well. i am going to spend tonight retrying 500 - 1000 with a variety of lps.

Zaikesman,
thanks! I have weaned myself off 47k myself over the last months and am reaping enormous benefits. your advise was excellent. especially helpful to me was your paragraph beginning "what you are looking for...".
the extreme highs at 47k were indeed "unrealistically exagerated", which at first was very seductive (in the "openness" that I heard in it). but now when I move too high in my setting I perceive an almost microphonic like echo effect that is extremely unnatural sounding.
it reminded me of what a friend of mine who is a sucessful producer of contempory commercial hip hop/r&b said to me when I explained to him that analog and tubes sound more natural to me, more real to my ear than digital. he said, "sure, I know what you mean. but when I'm in the studio we are actually TRYING to get an unrealistic, even supernatural sound. because it's attractive to the kids - it sells."
47k ohms sells too. I guess because it is so much better then the compression at the other extreme.

I did try it again with different settings and it was always the same: down from 47 k, it will be becoming slower and slower, more dull and lifeless.

But there is another point:

When the gain is set too high for your cartridge, you over-drive the amp stages and clipping and distortion is possible.

I did all with my Miyabi, 0,25mV

( this is low output, but not really low )

When I went too high with gain ( 67 dB and more ) in combination with 47k, then I hear clipping with piano recordings.

Going down to normal 63 dB area,then everything is great with 47k.

I think, most users set their phono stage to the max gain and then they do their ' experiments '.

Wrong way.
I had a Ruby, too, it is designed originally from Benz ( not Lukascheck ) for 47K.
The new Ruby II, which has a higher output, i think, something in the 0.4 mV area ??, when this one is amplified with too much gain ( 64 dB and much more- 68,70,75dB) and a 47K setting, this will be inferior. So I agree, when someone with such a setting is going down to 1k, that the prefers that.

The superiority of a 47K load ( in a phono stage which can handle it without sounding dead ) is only in combination with the right gain for the cartridge.

For those, who own a adjustable phono stage ( gain, impedance ...) and a uncoloured system it is easy to find out.

easy - and fun and time consuming!

Tagyerit: Glad to hear my polemics may have had some practical benefit. I agree with your analogy between what some feel is an attractively exagerated sound in a phono cart and what is done to many pop recordings in terms of studio production - once the ear is educated, the unaturalness of things like a hyped top octave and inflated images becomes repulsive (but then again, so is most of the music recorded that way, my apologies to your friend!). So what loading did you wind up deciding to run your Ruby at?