Before breaking my Glider, I recall loading to 1000 ohms made the cartridge "less hot" (as a friend described it). I had forgotten that my then Pass Labs Ono had loading options was it was like getting a free upgrade! My Clearaudio Discovery wound up at about 400 ohms. Then I got a Atmasphere preamp and in short order had the terminals installed to allow loading. I don't recall there really being a sonic difference when I did and about a year or so ago I removed them altogether and thusly defaulting to the 47,000 ohm standard. I want to say the sound is a little "more open" but won't swear to it. I'm certainly no worse for it and if anything, another "thing" has been removed from the path which is always good, IMO. Perhaps Ralph is correct about it not making a difference in his preamp. By all means experiment, but don't be afraid to try no loading at all.
Benz Micro Glider Loading
Hello,
I have an original Benz Glider. The measurements that came with the cartridge is .9mv and suggested loading is 1000-47k.
I ran this into a Krell KSL w/phono stage at 1k with good results.
I’ve also ran this into a Rogue Audio Model 99 Magnum with tubed phono and Hagerman Piccolo head amp at 1k with good results.
Right now, I’m using a MoFi Studio phono pre and am running it at 1k.
I’ve tried higher and lower load settings and to my ears, 1k seems to be the sweet spot.
I’ve been looking at phono pre’s on Audiogon and USAudiomart. I noticed some of them don’t have 1k loading as an option.
Should this deter me from considering these units?
I noticed after doing some research that others have been running their Gliders at much less than 1k. I found that running it much below 1k kind of sucked the life out of the sound in my experience.
I should mention that I had the Glider retipped with a micro-line stylus profile. The original was elliptical.
Admittedly, I may not understand loading and how it works as well as others. I can only go by what sounds good to me.
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@voolston You can imagine that if I'm aware of this issue facing all phono sections that we would make an effort to see to it that our phono section didn't have a loading problem... |
For sure! I used the word "perhaps" because I'm in no position to judge such things. You seem to be alone in your thoughts on this and good on you not to persuade folks to use loading of a cartridge to make your phono stage sound good, rather, letting it stand on the design merits alone. Of course, I see why you have made loading a possibility because some folks probably are just conditioned to or insist on doing it. Question - any benefit of having the loading terminal option removed from my MP-3? Might its existence allow for noise? |
I borrowed a friend's Parasound JC3 Jr. Already it made my analog rig with the Glider sound much better and it doesn't have a provision for 1K loading. 50- 550 or 47k for MC cartridges. I'm using 47k at the moment and it sounds great so I'm beginning to understand what you were saying about a well designed phono stage and the 1k loading option not needed. I don't know if the JC3 Jr. is considered well designed but it sounds pretty good from where I'm sitting. |
No- it can act as an antenna for RFI, but the input of the MP-3 is built to reject RFI.
@nicktheknife That preamp is designed by John Curl, who knows what he's doing 😁 |
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