MC Load Resistance

I know personally five top line cartridge makers, and when quizzed on this question, they all confided to me that they themselves, use 47k. loading.

When asked why they then recommend much lower values in their instructions, they all said it was because of the "fixed opinion" of most reviewers and audiophiles that such low output MCs need a low value resistive load, and that they didn't want to buck the trend!

I have found every cartridge I have owned, or have ever used, sounds more alive and vibrant at 47k - except for one - the unusual IKEDA, which did sound better at around 100 ohms.

IME, loading a cartridge is not the correct path to handle unwanted tonal qualities, changing the connecting cable can do more with less losses. And my own theory on why loading can change the characturistics of a cart is that they all have a HF peak, and loading can flatten this out. But this peak is normally well above audibility, so what's the problem? I say it's overloading a non optimum phono section, and that's the area you should be looking at to really hear what your cartridge can do!.

Regards, Allen (Vacuum State)

Allen, a peak past 'audibility' will have effects not unlike a tube without grid stoppers, exhibiting oscillation; IOW it can behave as if there is excessive ultrasonic energy. This can cause some preamps (not all) to exhibit excessive ticks and pops (in addition to brightness), due to the various instabilities introduced. The effect on the cartridge is easily measured, and without loading often there is more 'air' but when you examine it on the scope you will find that the 'air' is mostly just ringing (distortion).

This is why critical damping is such a nice value to achieve- you get out the the transducer just the signal, without additional 'commentary'. I suspect many cartridge distributors don't listen to any cartridge for very long so it might be that they don't bother, but they are simply missing bet, that's all.

Allenwright, Atmasphere, I do agree with Atmasphere (surprise...?). All (low-output) Moving Coils do need "some" dampening. And yes, - in my experience too that extra "air" is going in most (maybe all) cases along with "lack of body" and has a sense of being "artificial" and "somehow ringing".
Saying this I have to mention, taht back in the late 1980ies and early 1990ies I was a vivid frontman accepting nothing but high gain active phono stages and judging all step-up transformers as a waste of time and money.
In the following years however - mostly by using very low source impedance moving coil carts - I learned that there is more than just gain to a happy marriage between a top-flight mc and the matching transformer.
Knowing 3 cartridge designers personally, I do know that they do care about sound and the last jota of possible performance a lot less than I do.
Still the best "loading" and "dampening" for a low-output (= very often low source impedance) moving coil is in my ears and eyes a matching transformer.

Hi,
looks like we are back with the SUT business...
Let ME state categorically that the Dertonarm IS RIGHT with regards to a LOMC (>=0.3mV) producing more 'natural' sound with a correctly matched SUT.

Even with a pretty modern design cart like an Ortofon Windfeld that can pretty much work OK with loads from 500 - 47k ohm it sound *absolutely* better more natural with SUT.

In this case example: 4 ohm source impedance, ~ 20uH source inductance, and 0.3mV output.

Matched to an SUT of 30dB (1:31.6) i.e. 47ohm primary input impedance going into 47k phono-pre.
Primary DCR of SUT = 1.1 ohm)

Phono-pre is all SS, and in fact MORE quite! without SUT when set to 78dB. Using the cart with SUT gives more natural 'ambience' and depth information without perceivable loss of detail what so ever.

In comparison 1k resistive load gets to 'hot' in very dynamic passages, and already too 'sat-on' with ~500 ohm. Loading with 100 ohm sounds completely dead, or as Dertonarm pointed out by using the simile of far ‘too much feedback like’ sounding.

Now go figure...

Greetings,
Axel

It is a pity, that common Phono knowledge gets buried. Of course the user will find THE exception (SUT or high gain Phono) but may I add something important:
I listened to transformers from horrible-excellent, but honestly, horrible was majority. Colored, wrong in reproduction, channel separation and so on... I did that for 3 years with various units (EAR, Kondo, endless cheaper units) and at the end of the road I use now a top unit with 1.rate studio specs. No Hype, no miracles, just measured - and compared - datas.
And before I did that, I wasn't really mad for them.
Most manufacturers have no idea about the sense behind, they offer it - more or less - to make some money, top trannies are ALWAYS expensive, there is no way out and we know from former discussions, "expensive" is the most hated word in High End
(High End but lowest price, funny eh?)
But honestly, before some readers will say: "Great" after reading that and think, that is the - cheap - solution for everything: no, it's not.
It is just one more piece in the analog puzzle.