It’s interesting to read that the original poster found Ortofon’s too bright. Through my NAD phono preamp I find Ortofon’s flat and rolled off at the top. Much better synergy with AT’s and Goldring’s. I guess everyone experiences sound differently.
Ortofon carts are too hot for my phono preamp?
When I need hardware advice, I always come to Audiogon for the true experts. Thanks in advance and happy Easter!
So after much trial and error, I THINK I have deduced that my Ortofon 2M Bronze and 2M Black cartridges are too hot for my Avid Pulsus phono preamp. Some softer recordings are fine, but I think I am hearing some distortion with loud transients and even sometimes on relatively loud vocals.
I have a Pro-ject tube phono preamp I swap in and I don’ t hear that distortion. I never hear that distortion with other sources.
Given my investment in 3 Ortofon 2M carts (1 Bronze, 1 Black, 1 Black SE) and the Pulsus, is there anything I can do to step down that signal from the carts without doing any damage to the sound?
Any other thoughts?
(BTW the 2 turntables I am using are a Rega P3/24 and an older Rotel. Meridian preamp has variable gain settings on inputs and I can hear the distortion at any setting.)
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Not too bright, actually. There's no sibilance, for example. Too hot - as in loud transients and other loud passages seem to be creating distortion, and doesn't seem to occur with my other phono pre. In general, I enjoy the sound. But every third or fourth LP, maybe the louder ones, seem to have some distortion. As above I am also adjusting my line stage to see if a higher input setting helps reduce it. Ran out of time yesterday... |
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Sell both your phono preamps. The Avid, at 48dB gain is apparently too sensitive to overloading by your not abnormally high output MM cartridges, and the Pro-Ject because you don’t respect its quality. Then buy a Spartan 20, which is £500 and has impeccable accuracy, generous overload margins, and negligible noise. You will be hearing your records, not your preamp. |
This review at HFN says the Avid has an overload margin at MM inputs of 46mV. It’s not obvious to me that the phono stage per se is responsible for the “problem”, if it even is a problem.46mV is 10X the cartridge output at a stylus velocity of 5cm/sec at 1kHz. Decent headroom at least. Further, HFN auditioned it with a Shure V15, which I believe also has nominally a 5mV output. Viridian made a good point about capacitance. Check phono cable capacitance. Then check the recommended capacitance for the cartridge and the input capacitance of the stage. Input capacitance adds to cable capacitance. |
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