What a difference a setting makes.


I recently got a new turntable (Feikert,) Arm (Origin Live,) and cartridge Hana ML.) A whole new analog setup. I talked myself into thinking the sound was good, although I had doubts when I compared the SQ with the sound I was getting from the digital side. It was really great on some records (the equal of digital,) but the majority of discs were mediocre. Finally, I decided that with such good equipment I should be doing better. So, I contacted my salesman/advisor for help. He had initially recommended that I set the preamp with the gain at 58 and the load at 100 (evidently the standard for the Hana cartridge.) I kept it on that setting for several weeks.  
When I called him he suggested that I increase the load to 200. 
All of a sudden everything opened up! Almost everything I played had a presence it lacked before. The proverbial veil was lifted.  Records really did sound wonderful!  
I can’t help but think, that if I hadn’t had enough with the old sound I would be blissfully ignorant of what my set was capable.

 

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I did experiment with all the settings above 200 and found 200 to be the best.

But I will wager that values above 200 were in any case better sounding than the original 100 ohms load.  Or at least the flaws  in SQ would be of a different nature, compared to 100 ohms.