Cartridge Loading.....Part II
I read last night the below noted discussion with great interest. It's a long post but worth the effort and I found it interesting.
It started me thinking about the amount of loading on my moving coil cartridges. Years ago I purchased my first MC Cart, a very nice Benz Micro Glider, medium output of 0.5 mV as I recall. At that time I inquired about loading here on Audiogon. I was convinced, via discussion, by another member, that 300 Ohms was the magic number, so I thought.
Time moved onward and my second MC Cart is currently a Lyra Delos, again medium output 0.6mV. Both carts had Boron cantilevers', 6 nines oxygen free copper coils and line contact diamond stylis. When I set up the Delos I did not change or even consider 'loading' changes. That was a grand mistake.....
Well, thanks to this specific thread I started to second guess myself . (you can do this when retired and more time is on your hands....)
My take from this recent thread is as follows. Load at 100 Ohms or at 47K Ohms with a quality MC cartridge. I opened up my Conrad Johnson EF1 Phono Stage this afternoon. Found it set at 500 Ohms loading. 100 Ohms is not an available setting. Damn...All these years I've been running the wrong loading, and on two carts, back to back... I don't recall why I set the loading at 500 Ohms. Faulty logic.
I reset the loading to 47K, buttoned things up and called the wife in for a listening session. Sure as heck both of us noticed the highs were crisper and more 'apparent' than in the recent past. Not a huge difference, but yes, a difference.. Hard lesson learned!
So, you smarter folks on this site might banter amongst yourselves, but in reality there are those of us, behind the curtains, reading and listening! I just wish I hadn't wasted all those years listening to the incorrect load setting!
Ending with a sincere thank you very much!!
Lou
Dear @mijostyn " did order an ultra accurate RIAA board but I am already set up to do digital RIAA correction. " If you have that ultra accurated inverse eq. RIAA why do you think you could need digital corrections to that accurated analog RIAA?
Maybe you know " something " that I don't " see " down there.
R.... |
If we accept this to be the case (and I do) then the next logical step is to agree that we are simply discussing varying degrees of mistracking. Treating mistracking as black or white serves little purpose in this discussion.
Where is this proof?
In your stack of 20 test records I assume you also have CBS STR-100 which has a test for compliance. It is interesting to note that the telltale here is also mistracking. Again to repeat myself... If you accept that according to Lenz that loading a cartridge will stiffen the cantilever, how can that not effect the compliance? dave
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Dear @intactaudio : This is what I posted and pasted from what he posted and came from a years ago cartridge loading thread. The loading/tracking is not a new issue but an " old " issue discussed here and in other internet audio forums:
and here somerthing that he forgot to mention and that comes in that " old " thread that shows that that " myth " of tracking problems due to cartridge loading changes is a lie and nothing more:
""" heavy resistive loading you state could be definitively true- certainly not on tracking which is demonstrably false based on IM tests on tracking performance that I have incidentally performed as a function of load. While mechanical impact does occur as a result of electrical load- there is some back emf necessarily generated by the signal current that affects the mechanical motion, but a quick back of the envelope calculation using Lenz’s law and the 10uH cartridge suggests a 2 orders of magnitude difference between the generated signal and the back EMF for a 100 ohm load at 20kHz- certainly not enough to cause tracking issues. """ Btw, yes I have too that test LP and is logical that when we are mesuring/talking of compliance tracking always comes in the analysis. Cartridge compliance is so important that can " change " what we are accustom to do on the tonearm/cartridge resonance frequency issue that tell us that that resonance frequency must be in the 8hz-12hz ( around it. ) frequency range and the compliance has the " power " to does this: the LOMC Ortofon MC2000 model was reviewed in the 60?s by the Audio magazine, the cartridge was mounted in a Technics EPA 250 that was mounted in the Technics SP-10MK2. Well the cartridge weigth is 11grs. and the measured compliance was over30+ cu and along that tonearm its resonance frequency was as low as 5hz. Go figure ! and guess what : that tonearm/combination that in theory can’t run together had no single tracking issue with the true test Telarc 1812. Why that kind of success? because that really high compliance that gives that cartridge those extraordinary tracking abilities and I owned not one but 3 samples of that cartridge and you can be sure that at any loading will has not tracking issues. It’s impossible that loading can change the compliance in a LOMC cartridge in a cu levels that provoque added mistracking to the usual cartridge levels, no way. I’m not against that loading stiff the cantilever the real subject is that that stifness micro micro microscopic level that exist can´t be of the necessary magnitud to cause adding mistracking. As @mijostyn posted: silly to think in other way. Now, in the other side no one including the person that supports that till today never proved that added mistracking by changes in cartridge loading. I understand you but I think is useless and futile continue talking of something with out true prove. Don’t you think?
On other topic and thank’s to your last post that shows that Benjamin B. Bauer was the CBS laboratory Vice-president I learned that that Mr. Bauer is the same gentleman that in 1945 along names as Baerwald, Stevenson, Pisha and obviously Löfgren developed too equations/solution for tonearm/cartridge alignment: exist a Bauer alignment R. |
Cutting and pasting text without any reference to context is not proof. Where was it ever proposed that heavy loading causes additional mistracking? It has been my contention that exactly the opposite may be occurring. Everything you mention specifically refers to it being impossible for heavy loading to cause mistracking with which I concur. However the possibility that heavy loading may actually reduce mistracking hasn't been mentioned or covered by anyone beyond Moncrief that I know of. dave |
