The cartridge was dialed in from the dealer and checked when brought home. Nothing was changed.
Cartridge loading
Presently I am using a ZU/Denon DL103 mc cartridge with ZU Audio's highest tolerances. I had this cartridge mounted on my VPI Prime and after going through all the various loading combinations, I settled on 200 ohms. I was always satisfied with my choice of setting. I no longer have the Prime and now use the Technics SL1200G turntable. After having the same cartridge mounted and aligned by the dealer, I inserted it into my system and enjoyed the sound immensely, never touching the 200 ohm setting.
Yesterday I was listening to vinyl most of the day and for some reason I found the sound to be better than ever, mostly in the treble area. The highs had shimmer when needed and I had played the same records many times before on the Prime and they never sounded as good as they did yesterday. Just for the heck of it, I checked the cartridge loading and found it was now set at 1000 ohms. As I said, when I put the Technics into the system, I never bothered changing the loading which was at 200 ohms as it was the same cartridge, just a different turntable.
I believe I know what happened, when I last used the tone controls on my McIntosh preamp, (you have to shuffle through a menu) I must have inadvertently put the cartridge loading at 1000 ohms. It truly sounds fantastic, better than I ever thought possible. The Bass is still very deep and taut, midrange is the same but the treble, oh my, so much better. Now the million dollar question is why should it now sound better at 1000 ohms, when it sounded great before at 200 ohms? Can the tonearm on the Technics have an effect on cartridge loading? I always thought it was all dependent on the preamp, amp and speakers. What am I missing here? I am very curious to know. The specs for my cartridge say greater than 50 ohms for loading.
Thanks
Yesterday I was listening to vinyl most of the day and for some reason I found the sound to be better than ever, mostly in the treble area. The highs had shimmer when needed and I had played the same records many times before on the Prime and they never sounded as good as they did yesterday. Just for the heck of it, I checked the cartridge loading and found it was now set at 1000 ohms. As I said, when I put the Technics into the system, I never bothered changing the loading which was at 200 ohms as it was the same cartridge, just a different turntable.
I believe I know what happened, when I last used the tone controls on my McIntosh preamp, (you have to shuffle through a menu) I must have inadvertently put the cartridge loading at 1000 ohms. It truly sounds fantastic, better than I ever thought possible. The Bass is still very deep and taut, midrange is the same but the treble, oh my, so much better. Now the million dollar question is why should it now sound better at 1000 ohms, when it sounded great before at 200 ohms? Can the tonearm on the Technics have an effect on cartridge loading? I always thought it was all dependent on the preamp, amp and speakers. What am I missing here? I am very curious to know. The specs for my cartridge say greater than 50 ohms for loading.
Thanks
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- 190 posts total
You're not loading it as much as you were. Loading damps and reduces air and detail. You know the way you can turn a bicycle upsidedown and turn the pedals as fast as you can and it really flies? Now try it with the brakes applied at various levels. Notice how it's more controlled when peddling against the braking? That's damping. |
Most of my MC cartridges are better with loading much higher than 100 Ohm, normally 1000 Ohm, 10 000 Ohm or even 47 000 Ohm is better. But do not expect that you will stay forever with a chosen loading, it depends on the mood. This arm is not optimal for your low compliance Denon cartridge, simply learn about tonearm/cartridge resonance. Your cartridge must be used with super heavy tonearm as the compliance of Denon is extremely low! Make sure to use the heaviest possible headshell and add subweight on the back of your tonearm to increase the mass of the arm as much as possible. |
Dear @stereo5 : I agree with those two gentlemans, you need to test it at 200 ohms again and try to fine tunning the cartridge/tonearm set up at that loading. In the other side your Technics tonearm is spot on with that cartridge due that its compliance is over 10cu, don't worry in this regards. Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS, R. |
Cartridge loading is for the benefit of the phono section, not the cartridge! It prevents the inductance of the cartridge and the capacitance of the tone arm interconnect cable from creating a resonant circuit, by detuning it. The resonant circuit can produce noise (often RFI) that is considerably more powerful than the cartridge signal itself! The problem is that the loading resistor also causes the cartridge to do more work- it has to drive that load. The energy to do that comes from the stylus in the groove driving the magnetic generator in the cartridge, so the cantilever will get stiffer and less able to trace high frequencies. So less loading will open up the highs in some cases. The problem is if the circuit resonance appears, it acts as RFI injected into the input of the phono section. If the phono section is sensitive to RFI it won't sound right- hence the need for loading. OTOH if the phono circuit designer understood this problem, then no loading at all is needed since the phono section will have no problem with the RFI. A side benefit of a proper phono preamp design is you will also experience less ticks and pops, as these can be caused by stability problems in the phono preamp! At any rate always go with the least loading (highest resistor value) you can such that the system has correct tonal balance. |
- 190 posts total