Cartridge Loading- Low output M/C


I have a Plinius Koru- Here are ADJUSTABLE LOADS-
47k ohms, 22k ohms, 1k ohms, 470 ohms, 220 ohms, 100 ohms, 47 ohms, 22 ohms

I'm about to buy an Ortofon Cadenza Bronze that recommends loading at 50-200 ohms

Will 47 ohms work? Or should I start out at 100 ohms?

I'm obviously not well versed in this...and would love all the help I can get.

Also is there any advantage to buying a phono cartridge that loads exactly where the manufacturer recommends?

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
krelldog
catcher10 (and other experts here)
In absolute terms, does a Phono pre with multiple gain/loading options only sound it's absolute best at 1 permutation of settings?
I ask because I once read a ARC Ref 2 Phono review and it was said that it sounded better at the lower gain setting. Then in my pre (an older ARC Ref) the loading involves soldering resistors onto some taps. To my ears this always sounds more veiled than without the resistors with the 5 carts of different recommended loadings that I have owned.
No, you are interpreting what I say about the simulations quite right.
It definitely seems that if you want to terminate the cartridge in a high impedance- and it hardly matters whether it's 47kohm or 1Gohm, you'd better be using a passive RIAA stage, or possibly an inverting RIAA stage- I haven't checked that out yet. 
The non-inverting active RIAA can be 50-90dB worse than the passive design in the several MHz regions where the resonances and RFI reside if the extra pole is not included,  and 20-60dB if it is included. Loading the cartridge with 100 ohms gives you most of the difference back, but the passive is still c. 20dB better.
The non-inverting active, however, has superior square wave response than the passive- due to having higher frequency correct amplitude harmonic content- under low load R conditions- but who knows if that matters.
I wonder if this correlates against the reports from various reviewers concerning their preferred load impedances.
Back to the cutter- could you possibly please tell me a few more pieces of information- like the inductance you use and the C/R of the head input?
Dear @almarg and friends: This came for the very first post by Wyn:


""  the bottom line is- you’ll never get it perfect. You can either listen and decide what you like......... A couple of other things, the RIAA deemphasis of your amp comes into play, and it’s not unusual for that to be off c. 0.5dB or so over some frequency range, and most amps have restricted frequency responses to reduce the infrasonic and ultrasonic signals.
Also, your room/speaker response is probably poor with errors at least as large as any from the above sources, so unless you’ve characterized and corrected that then listening is probably your best bet. """


and then from the others posts these hiligths:

""" I'm a believer in fixing the problem where it exists and not by adding an additional parameter to an already over-constrained problem. """


"""  Unfortunately accentuated dynamics and resolution all too often mean a really nasty peak at the HF. In my experience......... testing the RIAA response can be a real eye opener.
Most of the differences in response that occur due to changes in load are in the 10k-20kHz range. """

"""  Again, listening is best, but be careful not to delude yourself.
Audiophiles (myself included) tend to get seduced by what are essentially deviations from what the real listening experience provides- such as excessive detail, ability to resolve supposed room artifacts etc. etc.
These effects, in my substantial experience of live performances, just do not exist in a live listening environment,..."""


"""   take the Madake for instance- the resistive load that people (reviewers) claim is best literally varies by nearly four orders of magnitude! I load mine with 60 ohms (as do many users) and I find that the resolution and dynamics is excellent while maintaining a natural timbre, tonal balance and micro/macro dynamics while not creating the unnatural etched image that many "high resolution" MC cartridges produce.   """


"""  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,......................................................................................................................... perhaps the answer to the loading question is, no matter how unlikely it seems- it depends on the architecture of your phono   """


Everything he posted is full of lessons for me and maybe for some other readers.

Is important for me read those highligths that gives a more " affordable " information for all and important to note his " perhaps " in last higligth.


This thread made that I remembered one time in one of my trips to USA when in an audiophile place whom owned a top system/room audio system ( 150K-200K $$$. ) I attended and when we were listening his system I noted something was wrong with the tonal balance of his LOMC cartridge .
His system in those times ( between other items ) had: Walker TT, Dali top of the line speakers, tube monobloks amps, first rate cables everywhere, very good room treatment many audiophile tweaks and a four chasis all tube phono stage ( no SUT. ).

Mi first question to him was the value of the load he was using where I ask him to lower to at least 100 ohms and he did it ( he was loading it at way higher R. ) and ligths come out " and he noted at once as I did it." 
Everything changed for the better. Over the time my experiences with my and other systems attest the same behavior ( tubes and SS electronics. ).

Al, I posted to you that the capacitance issue is almost useless when exist several other critical subjects we have to fix in our systems before that.
As Wyn posted: "  so unless you’ve characterized and corrected that then listening is probably your best bet. """ followed by:
""" 
fixing the problem where it exists and not by adding an additional parameter to an already over-constrained problem """

Analog is full of " problems " and " problems " of more vital importance that the capacitance issue and are on those " main problems " where we have to work before other " new " parameter.

If I remember years ago (but I'm not sure if he was. ) I read probably in the long MM thread a JC post telling that for capacitance could has an audible effect with LOMC cartridges the amount of capacitance must be truly high. This was the second time that I read it ( first time somewhere in the net. ) . As I said not totally sure if was JC but was in Agon. I really never bother about as I don't bother yet.

As @krelldog and @catcher10: " 
There is a tremendous amount of info here, both super technical as well as the basics """.


R.


One other thing, setting the input resistance >>100 ohms can have unfortunate effects on the input stage amp if the bandwidth is high. For example, with a AD797 opamp the gain bandwidth product is 110MHz, so for a c. 2.5MHz electrical cartridge resonance  the amp still has a gain of 44, so if the input stage has a high gain the total gain at resonance can be 35+32dB=67dB, or a gain of about 2k, so if, for example, there's a transient click which generates a 1mv rms output at resonance the input amp can produce 2v rms output.
This may not be an issue, but it would seem to me that when using a high resistive load an input amp with either a very high overload margin or a deliberately limited bandwidth (<<2.5MHz) would be essential. Once again, preamp architecture seems to be the deciding factor.
This may not be an issue, but it would seem to me that when using a high resistive load an input amp with either a very high overload margin or a deliberately limited bandwidth (<<2.5MHz) would be essential. Once again, preamp architecture seems to be the deciding factor.

It is an issue, as far as I can tell. Overload margin is really important otherwise ticks and pops abound.

When you cut a lacquer, if the stylus angle and temperature are set right, the silent groove is so quiet that the playback electronics are the noise floor. The test LP you get back from the pressing plant comes with a form that the producer has to sign- so the test LP gets a listen to insure an absence of ticks and pops. So it follows that most LPs should be nice and quiet, and in practice if the phono preamp is up on its game, they will be.
I don't have the values you requested, but the coil at the output of the cutter amps isn't very large. The inductance of the head varies depending on the voice coil used and we've used both. The older version use a series resistance, while the newer ones are higher impedance (about 10 ohms) and don't employ the resistor. I suspect this could be handled in a better way, as well, the cutter amps were designed in the late 1960s- they are pretty primitive!