In addition to what I and Atma have written, I am most amazed that you hear differences in SQ among resistances of 250, 324, 368, 404, 500 & 600 ohms. I don't doubt you, but I have tried such experiments and never heard much if any difference. Or to put it another way, if there IS a difference among such closely related values, it is so subtle as to be irrelevant. I set up one of my phono stages to be switchable between 100, 1000, and 47K ohms for LOMC cartridges. Now I do hear slight differences between 100 and 47K ohms, but both are acceptable and close to being the same. If I had to say, I would say 47K is slightly more tipped up toward the treble. This is with cartridges that have internal resistance between 2 and 12 ohms. This phono stage is balanced and the cartridges are hooked up on balanced mode always, straight through to the speakers. (Balanced phono, linestage, and amplifiers.) Speakers are full range ESLs.