Cartridge upgrade for VPI Scoutmaster

Wooten,

I have the Airy-3 and a Pass Ono which is very similar to your Xono. I think you will find that the loading will sound best between 80-136 Ohms depending on the phono cable you are using.

If you test the varying settings, and find your best setting is something outside this range, please post back. I am happy with my setup, but am willing to experiment with other successful parameters. ;-)

Darrell

Dmccombs
Thanks for your input. Only a Xono owner understands the unusual load settings for this phono pre. I will try your settings after I get my cart tweaked more properly. I am using the loading I set up for my Dynavector 20X-H. I use HT Magic in and out (balanced out), and throughout my system. What cables are you using? Are you running balanced or single-ended out? What pre-amp are you using?

Wooten,

I was using a XLO phono cable. With that, the best loading I found was at 81 ohms.

Then I changed to a Purist Audio Venustas. I could immediately hear that the loading was different. With that cable, I found that 100ohms was best.

As the Airy breaks in, people have found that the loading requirements change. Since you bought your used, you may not have much of a break-in or loading change.

Darrell

The phono cable has no effect on loading.

Ralph Karsten (Atma-Sphere) explains this quite thoroughly in a recent thread.

The voltmeter azimuth adjustment really seems to be a crap shoot without a filter ("low pass" I believe) to eliminate the bounce in the DMM reading. Others have mentioned that this is easily built from Radio Shack parts but I haven't come accross instructions on how this is done. Does anyone know where to access information on how to construct one of these. Without it, it's really a guess as to which numbers to go with for calculating cross talk. For this reason, I currently start with the azimuth level and adjust by ear if it seems necessary. Wooten, you may want to have a filter ready before you try the DMM method.