Moving Coil Cartridge loading

[martinjohn308]

I’ve been using moving coils since 1978 with the Supex 900E at that time I used the modules that came with the pre amps firstly Meridian 101 and then Naim 32 both had inbuilt boards.

Fast forward 30 years then moved onto Graham Slee Fanfare which was slightly better than the Naim boards. Not a night and day thing, then about 2010 I bought a Whest Audio30R which was a big improvement able to adjust the ohms by that time I had a Dynavector DV 20 L swiftly followed in a Micro Benz Wood SL an very good cartridge.

I finally I started talking and emailing Simon and I decided to buy the Paradise this was an exceptional phono stage an absolute gem and Simon attention to detail to source all the components and matching the values is such a painstaking job but well worth the time.

I moved onto a Kiseki Blue NS Simon sent me a handful of different value resistors for the loading which I played around with for the better part of 6 weeks. Emailed Kiseki and they recommended 400 ohms loading I found the cartridge somewhat suppressed then tried opposite end of the scale 100 ohms found that to bright moved onto 330 ohms Sound was better than the 400 ohm setting. Finally tried 220 ohms which to me was the sweet spot so I told Simon and he told me to buy the Z foil resistors which I fitted them, so I do think some cartridges do alter with loading values.

Regards,

Martin

[RothwellAudio]

Emailed Kiseki and they recommended 400 ohms loading I found the cartridge somewhat suppressed then tried opposite end of the scale 100 ohms found that to bright moved onto 330 ohms Sound was better than the 400 ohm setting. Finally tried 220 ohms which to me was the sweet spot so I told Simon and he told me to buy the Z foil resistors which I fitted them, so I do think some cartridges do alter with loading values.

It's interesting that your findings are totally opposite to what most people report when experimenting with load resistors. People usually say that a higher impedance will give a brighter and more dynamic sound, while a low impedance gives a softer, duller sound.
The OP is convinced his cartridge has a subdued treble due to low impedance loading.