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Transfiguration Temper Supreme cartridge loading

I'm trying to optimize the cartridge loading for my Transfiguration Temper Supreme (which has a 7 ohm impedance) with my Spectral DMC-20 preamp with internal phono stage. There seem to be benefits/trade-offs for the three best settings I have found: 10 ohms, 30 ohms, and 100 ohms.
10 ohms seems to give the most detailed, airy presentation, but with about half the gain, requiring me to turn up the volume control half-way just for reasonable sound.
30 ohms loses a little bit of the realism, but is still pretty open and detailed.
100 ohms loses more of the airiness and detail, but seems to have a better soundstage.
I'm tending to go with the 30 ohms, but I might prefer the 10 ohms if I didn't have to go so high with the preamp volume control. I've seen all kinds of recommendations (including from this forum) regarding the optimal setting. I am getting confused and need some guidance.
128x128ctlphd
audiofeil
4,011 posts
 
Trust your ears.

It really doesn't matter what anybody else thinks.
bkonig
127 posts
 
There should be no problem going up on the volume control as long as you do not have noise issues and you have ample dynamics. If so, then I suggest going with 10 ohms.
ctlphd's avatar
ctlphd OP
42 posts
 
Thanks. I'm going back and forth between 10 and 30 ohms to hear the difference in just those two now. BTW, what about cable impedance? Do I just measure it with an ohmmeter and it adds in series with the cartridge impedance? I'm thinking I will need at least 30 ohms when you take a cable into account, though it may be even more. If I remember correctly, the cables connected to my cartridge via a Wheaton Triplanar tonearm are Cardas phono cables.
lewm
13,017 posts
 
Cable impedance is trivial as far as loading the cartridge. It's likely to be way less than one ohm. However, the fact that you have a significant loss of gain when you use a 10-ohm load (not surprisingly), indicates that the cartridge is over-damped electrically. But your statement that you prefer the sonics with a 10-ohm load vs other loads up to 100 ohms over-rides all the technical stuff, IMO. I would still urge you to try higher impedance loads, e.g., 1000 ohms. You might be pleasantly surprised, and you would get back all that gain you are losing. The sound ought to be a lot more dynamic, too.
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