Benz Ebony LP loading

I believe the Ayre phono has a 60db gain. On the LP, might be barely enough. You would have to crank it up. Lack of gain can cause the system to sound "not interesting".

I had my stepup hooked to my Pass XONO and provided total of 66 db gain. It was barely enough (not enough for my taste)for my Dynavector XV1 cartridge. With the Pass set to MC, the 71 db gain worked much better but more woud be welcome. The system came alive.

Greg, nice step up you have.

sorry too much egg nog. that would be a factor of ten not 100.

..and Happy Holidays to all of you. I feel like you are all my friends and are on my side trying to get this damned thing to work. The gain of the preamp set at 60db. The volume control is set at the sometimes 11:00, sometimes 12:00 position depending on how the record was recorded - the exact place that the H was. Yes indeed I did notice the long break-in time with the H, however, this LP is way longer...I bet I have over 500 hours on it. The "magic" i'm talking about that the H had that mine doesn't seem to have is that super lucious midrange. The H had such a deep and wide soundstage the walls disappeared. There was extraordiny depth. Instruments and singers had a roundness of sound, clearly defined in their own little pocket of space. My wife says that this cartridge sounds like a very good hi-fi and most people would say very nice. The low end on the H had visceral impact and could shake the house with little effort. This one seems only to have the overtones of the lowest tones. The H had instant highs. Cymbals, triangles, etc would shimmer effortlessly. This LP sounds sandy. My whole system is Ayre and therefore balanced. The table has XLR connections. When the stylus drops into the groove its as silent as my Ayre C5xe Universal player. We'll see what more time, and different loading resistors can make. Oh - by the way, when I changed to 47000 ohms, the highs became unnaturally bright, but that midrange spaciousness/luciousness I long for is still not there.

Stringeen, with my Ruby 3, which possesses I believe the same gain, .34mv, I too am using 60db Gain on my Sutherland PhD. This is the highest gain setting on the Stock Gain Boards, but I do have the High Gain Boards, which are 62, 64, 66, 68, and did try these Boards when the Cartridge was brand spanking new.

It truthfully didn't seem like I was overdriving the Sutherland, or getting a too raw, or hot sound with just very minor gain differences, but I myself "may" go back to the drawing board trying these again, as well as trying a different loading, going from 1000K to 47K just for the hell of it?

The only logical conclusion I can come to..... Is that Benz, with thier new iteration of Cartridges perhaps did something that maybe sounds good on paper, (different materials for Cantilever Suspension, and/or the supposed improvement they made holding the Cantilever) but perhaps was a design-performance flaw?

If they did somehow screw up, doubtful they would be notifying customers to return thier Cartridges for exchange, etc.

While my Ruby 3, as you know is right beneath your LP, and sounds OK-pretty decent, IMO it neither knocks my socks off as of yet, which it should for the price, and IMO too, lacks some of the qualities (slam, midrange beauty, and balance) my much cheaper Benz Glider HO possessed.

Seems like this Cartridge does surprise me at times, depending on the recording, and seems a bit more "picky-particular" with recordings than the Glider was.
It seems to be said, that a low output MC perhaps puts a Phono Stage to a more critical test than a high output Cartridge does?

I would assume as well, after 150 hours of play, your Cartridge "should've" bloomed, and broken in by now? Mark

..and yet, The Absolute Sound or Stereophile exclaimed the LP as truely something special and put it in their highest category. I'm going to continue my quest to mke this thing work. I'll report my progress