It has been a while, but, I went from using a Lyra Titan to a Transfiguration Orpheus L (low output) with my Viva Fono phonostage. The Viva is a tube-based phono stage with a built in step up transformer. The Viva does not offer any loading options. I found out that mine came loaded with a 460 ohm resistor across the positive and negative of the input jack, meaning it was loaded on the primary side of the step up transformer. This loading was specifically chosen to work with the Orpheus L. But, for purposes of experimenting with loading, I disconnected the loading resistor and made loading plugs with different resistors to see how different primary side loading affected the sound. To my surprise, the Orpheus L was rather indifferent to loading changes with this phono stage. This was particularly surprising because the source impedance of the Orpheus L is extremely low (1 ohm) which suggests that it should be fairly heavily loaded (i.e., low value loading resistor) as compared to most other cartridges. I ended up just hooking the 460 ohm resistor back into place and not bothering with loading.
