Ortofon Per Windfeld Load Impedance?

Taylor514,

the Windfeld, like other Ortofons, has a low internal resistance of 4 ohms only.

In Germany, many vinyl-junkies use the formula of the load impedance being at least 10 times the value of the internal resistance, Bill Feil gave you the rule of 25 times. That seems to be about right for a lot of cartridges, including from Ortofon - but not for the Windfeld.

I own the Ortofon Vienna, which is produced for the German market only, and which was until the Windfeld the best cartridge Ortofon ever made. It has internal resistance of 4 ohms, too.

I cannot comment myself on loading values, as my McIntosh preamp includes an Ortofon-built internal step-up transformer, and excluded both the neccesity and the possibility to experiment with different loading values.

However, Matthias Böde, editor of German magazine Stereo and a hard-core-vinyl-lover, found the Vienna to sound best with a load impedance of 80 ohms - as other Ortofons before.

The Windfeld, however, seems to be a different beast.

Dirk Sommer, editor of image hifi, an experienced vinyl reviewer in the mold of Michael Fremer, found the Windfeld to sound good when offered a load impedance of 500 ohms, which was the hightest value his Einstein phono preamp offered.

Stefan Gawlick, in another review in magazine HiFi&Records, wrote that the Windfeld sounded best when offered a load impedance of close to 1000 ohms, using several phono preamps.

Regards,
Florian Hassel

Thanks for the info Florian. It was suggested by a reliable source when I first bought my PW to load it at 1000 Ohms. I have to admit, I was sceptical. Since the load is hard wired on my phonostage, I thought I'd get a few suggestions from other PW owners before switching the load from 100 Ohms. Hopefully, I will be able to adjust the load via rotary switch in the near future ... that will make load comparisons much easier. I have to admit, I'm one of the 98% of audiophiles who don't own square wave generators and oscilloscopes and will have to rely on my hearing to determine which sound I like best.

Dear taylor514: +++++ " and will have to rely on my hearing to determine which sound I like best. " +++++

Your hearing almost always be your best " judge ". The measures tools help to tell us what is happening in our system ( links ) because like in the cartridge load impedance it is common that what you like at hearing are not close of what it should be in theory through measurements and this could help you to try and find where in your system is a " trouble ".

From my experiences and IMHO loading a cartridge with a internal resistance of 4 Ohms , like the Windfeld, with a preamp set-up of 1000 Kohms makes no sense to me, this could tell me that maybe something is not totally fine in that audio system, unfortunately I don't have that cartridge to test it in my system and I can't be sure about.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

That comment Raul about relying on my hearing was said in good humour of course and I understand the need of reliable tools to help trouble shoot a system. I look forward to comparing different settings when my phonostage is upgraded and changing load settings is a bit easier. Thanks for all the interesting comments and advice.

No, I am not kidding. Figured he had some other wonderful reason for the name. I wouldn't think principals of anything but garage companies would contribute here. My goof. So T is this pre in the same league as your buddy Raul's? Same performance history as your other hero Alex? Nevermind, I'll check it out myself... Meanwhile, I keep foraging for that white paper...