Benz micro glider cartridge loading advice needed.


Hello! I hope you are all doing well!

I just purchased a new phono pre amp.

I have an older Benz micro glider moving coil cart with 1.1 mv output.

The pre amp has gain of 45db (mm) up to 65bd (mc).

Load settings for moving coil are: 10, 22, 47, 100, 220,  470, 1k, 22k, 47k.

I know that I should listen for myself to determine the best setting. But can someone with more experience than myself give me a range within which to start based on having used gliders in their systems?

 

Thanks !

judsauce

Some gain stage topologies just naturally invert phase. Some don’t. You can judge for yourself by experiment in your own system whether that makes a difference to your listening pleasure.

If you have no “phase” switch on your preamp, then just reverse the speaker wires on BOTH speakers. Thus both speakers remain in phase with each other, which is vitally important for stereo imaging.

I should have added that, for those who can hear differences in absolute phase, the optimal phase might be different for each LP, or even for different tracks on the same LP.This is why I’m grateful that with my dipolar ESLs, absolute phase makes no audible difference either to me or to others who are younger and have better hearing.

@lewm 

I should have added that, for those who can hear differences in absolute phase,

You should be so lucky.

Unfortunately I hear inverted absolute phase even in foreign systems. David Fletcher of Sumiko the same.

Sadly there are many records where instruments/vocals are out of phase relative to each other - eg you can have clean vocals with fuzzy sax or  vice versa.

Can be annoying.

ESL's are less pronounced than cone speakers.

 

 

Your last bit about instruments vs vocals being out of phase with each other in a given track is something I didn’t dare mention for fear of scaring the OP. A good reason to just pick a polarity and live with it unless one has a preamp with a phase switch that permits convenience in choosing absolute phase per each recording.

Years ago I ran a blind test of my wife, my then teenage son, and a friend, using the phase switch on my Atmasphere MP1 and listening to my full range Sound Lab ESLs. I stood behind them, out of their fields of view, and flipped the phase switch on several recordings. Neither they nor I could hear any effect.

Not to hijack this fine thread... I wish someone could, in a new thread explain why in the heck phase inversion is used in the first place.  I have a system full of CJ equipment and it gets confusing about weather to flip the speaker wires or not..