Cartridge Loading- Low output M/C

The recording process (particularly analog) imposes restrictions in the frequency response- limiting the HF and LF responses. These restrictions are not set in any standard and are usually due to limitations in the equipment used (Tape recorder and lathe frequency responses and dynamic ranges for examples). Good recording engineers try to minimize the effects, but they still exist.

Hello Wyn, when I saw this comment, because I run a small LP mastering operation, I thought you might like to know that the bandwidth of most LP mastering systems can go pretty high (and down to about 5Hz). Our Westerex system is bandwidth limited by a filter on the mastering amplifiers at 42KHz. This is mostly done to prevent damage to the cutter head from errant signals at the input, since the RIAA preemphasis causes a wee bit of extra gain at that frequency!  As far as dynamic range is concerned, the limitation of LP dynamic range is on the playback side, not record (although many LPs are compressed, this is mostly due to the fact that if no compression is to be used, the mastering engineer will have to spend a bit more time with the project, so compression is there to save money, not because the LP format can't do it). The cutter head can easily cut grooves that no modern arm/cartridge combination could track; the mastering engineer's task is to make sure that the cutter head does not exceed those playback limits!
Just to be clear about the effects of RFI on a preamp, the designer's concern is not so much about RFI from external sources like a radio station (although that certainly is a concern) but the RFI generated by the cartridge and interconnect cable combination (and also the input capacitance of the preamp itself). If immune to the latter, it will also be immune to the former.

Thanks, that's useful information. I have a good, old, friend that's a hi-fi reviewer in the UK and also is part of the team that produces the "Chasing the Dragon" series of recordings. We have arguments about this all the time as he feels so sure that his A810 with NE5532 opamps galore in the playback path is so superior to LPs and he often cites the limitations described to him by the mastering engineers. 
I assume that the 42kHz cut off isn't a single pole- and I also assume that it uses some kind of relatively benign analog filter like a butterworth or gaussian.
I too have a tape deck- an Otari MX50 that also uses opamps galore- some better than NE5532s, some worse, that sounds, to my ears equally good but slightly different to his A810 and which measures imperceptibly different to his except infinitesimally worse W&F and lower distortion.

I have a long history of listening to tape playback- starting from the time when I was with Decca at their production plant in Malden England, and to my ears a well recorded, well mastered and pressed LP can be just as good.

Dear @lewm : Something is " wrong " ( maybe I. ) or not clear somewhere because in my system loaded at 100 ohms a LOMC cartridges ( almost any. ) quality level performance is truly fantastic and yes wide open, precise and clear at the top end frequency range. Tonal balance is superb and you never can say " sounds a little dull ". Dynamics are great too, transientes, rythm and everything.

All those’s contrary of what many of you that are loading at 47kohms posted in this thread and I know for sure no one of you are deaf but neither I.

I have to say that I’m very sensitive to both frequency extremes that’s where belongs my main self home system/room educational foundations to my main target that’s truer to the recording been live MUSIC the top reference.

I listened many many audio system/room other than mine through audio dealers and mainly in audiophile places where normally ( even with 300K+ dollars systems. ) those both frequency ranges are a little " out " from what I’m learned must be.

Yes, as always I can be wrong but some of the audiophiles at their places and after make some " changes " in their systems agreed with my take.

Of course and as I posted my system has no single problem with cliks or pops.

Many of us are accustomed or like more " high frequency "/frequency deviations ( that I normally name it:distortions. ) that I can’t listen in in live acoustic events.

Obviously that almost each one of use have diferent home system/room targets .

Anyway, very enligthing discussion.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

There is a tremendous amount of info here, both super technical as well as the basics. If you do one thing, that is click on the link JCarr posted from 4yrs ago on Whatsbestforum, it gets you well into cartridge loading topic by an expert.
I read that article 3yrs ago and that opened my eyes to LOMC loading, and what is happening from stylus thru phono stage to power amp...and why.

It is very true, we must use our ears and chose what sounds best for us, even in the Lyra instruction booklet it gives you the mathematical process but then also states, or determine by listening.

The one thing for sure is that I will never own a phono stage that only gives me a couple loading options as well as no gain settings (more gain is not the answer).
And yes I do want to enjoy the music, more than anything, but I want that at the highest level of resolution and dynamics I can afford or adjust for.

Cheers,

Well, if the simulations are to be believed the results are quite interesting, if hardly entirely unexpected.
I'm simulating an opamp based phono stage with near perfect 20-20kHz RIAA compliance, with both active FB and passive RIAA implementations. The feedback design has the extra HF pole.
 If you load the cartridge with 47k the input rings at the resonant frequency of the input network (>4MHz) when you hit the RIAA preemphasis network with a 2KHz square wave and it lasts for 10s of us. 
When the load is reduced to 1k the ringing is damped and it ends in a few us. 
Into 100 ohms the response is well damped with a small over shoot and after 1us it tracks the input perfectly. At 400 ohms there is just a small amount of ringing.
Adding 0.1uF to the 100ohm load noticeably slows the edge of the feedback RIAA preamp output square wave compared to 85pF. Increasing the R to 400 ohms, and keeping the 85pF shows the slight ringing on the output response but doesn't have a reduced rise time, increasing the R to 47k shows significant near-oscillation at the output of the preamp.
The passive design shows none of these pathologies with the change in load R, and always has a significantly slower and essentially constant, risetime, so clearly the RIAA de-emphasis producing opamps are reacting to the HF signal.
So, perhaps the answer to the loading question is, no matter how unlikely it seems- it depends on the architecture of your phono amplifer!