Cartridge Loading- Low output M/C

The best starting point to check your cartridge and phono stage is 47k Ohm for MC (take in count what Atmasphere said)  

@atmasphere 

I didn't know most of that. Thanks for sharing!

Krellog,

You got a lot of useful information and advice above, particularly from lewn and atmasphere.  From my own experience, I tend to like to run my cartridges wide open, because my tube-based phonostage is not prone to overload from RFI and I get the most top end extension and "air" that way (this open top end is why one pays big bucks for MC cartridges).  But, if there is close to universal loading (one that works reasonably well with most MC cartridges) it would be around 100-150 ohms. 

Have you listened to your setup with a different loading than 22 ohms?  That would be a LOT of loading for almost any cartridge and it would tend to kill dynamics and make the top end dull.  While the particular sound one likes is a personal preference, I would be concerned that you might be utilizing excessive loading to compensate for other problems that are better addressed more directly.  For example, if you have the tonearm raised too high at the pivot (excessively high VTA/SRA), this tends to create a thin, edgy sound that you might be compensating for by excessive loading).

Dear  @atmasphere : The OP is asking for loading and not why many phono stages works in different way when we make load values.

Who cares, he as any one of us already owns a phono stage it does not matter what and no one can make a world research to find out which phono stages works as should be, it's imposible to do that.

So, what each one of us have to do is to load our cartridges according what we have and according each one music/sound priorities. That's all.

R.

Dear @krelldog : For the first 50-60 hours test it with 100 ohms . During that time is only for the cartridge can overall settle down, after those 50-60 hours you have to re-check the tonearm/cartridge whole set up: overhang, cantilever alignment, VTA/SRA, VTF and AZ and after this " fine tunning " excersice you can to start your listening tests starting with that 100 ohms and  listening for a while and the make a change either to 47 ohms or 220 ohms then you can decide where is better for you.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.