Total cartridge confusion

Chaps, can I ask for a little guidance with my cartridge and preamp.
I am currently awaiting a new power amp but whilst waiting I picked up a nice, mint Audiolab 8000c. I am unable to hook the preamp up at the moment as I don't have a power amp so I haven't been able to listen to my turntable through the Audiolab.
I struggle with the specifications for cartridges at the best of times and I am unsure as to how well matched the cartridge will be with the phonostage in the pre. I bought the pre as I know it suits the power amp very well (and the power amp is great with my speakers) so I am working my way back from speakers to cartridge.
Can you have a look at the spec for cartridge and pre and give me an idea of how well matched they might be?

Thransfiguration Spirit mk1. : output is 0.36 mv
Internal impedance is 10 ohms.
Recommended loading of 10 ohms.

Audiolab 8000c : input for MC : 110V/100 ohms /3.3nF
Phono overload for MC : 25 dab real 0.5mV
Max input of 10mV @ 1 kHz



Will the pre show a load to the cart of about 10 ohms - some gentle education please guys.
Cheers!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by guero

Chaps, can I ask for a little guidance with my cartridge and preamp.
I am currently awaiting a new power amp but whilst waiting I picked up a nice, mint Audiolab 8000c. I am unable to hook the preamp up at the moment as I don't have a power amp so I haven't been able to listen to my turntable through the Audiolab.
I struggle with the specifications for cartridges at the best of times and I am unsure as to how well matched the cartridge will be with the phonostage in the pre. I bought the pre as I know it suits the power amp very well (and the power amp is great with my speakers) so I am working my way back from speakers to cartridge.
Can you have a look at the spec for cartridge and pre and give me an idea of how well matched they might be?

Thransfiguration Spirit mk1. : output is 0.36 mv
Internal impedance is 10 ohms.
Recommended loading of 10 ohms.

Audiolab 8000c : input for MC : 110V/100 ohms /3.3nF
Phono overload for MC : 25 dab real 0.5mV
Max input of 10mV @ 1 kHz



Will the pre show a load to the cart of about 10 ohms - some gentle education please guys.
Cheers!

---

Hi,

Others more competent than me will reply, but your input for MC will not be 110 volts but micro volts?

Gary

The impedance matching will be fine (that is: source impedance 10 Ohm, with a loading impedance of 110 Ohm). I'm more concerned with the sensitivity of the amplifier.

The sensitivity of any amplifier input is usually the voltage required to produce full output to the speakers. Your cartidge has an output of 0.36mV (= 360uV), whereas the input sensitivity of the phono input of your Cambridge amp is 110uV. This means the volume control will probably be only a little way up for normal listening levels. It will work of course but it is not optimum.

Try it out first, but if you find the range of the volume control to be 'cramped': going from very quiet to very loud with only a small amount of turn, you may need to fit a couple of attenuators. Attenuators with a value of either 6dB or 10dB will suitable.

I'd be a bit surprised if the overload capability of the phono stage can't cope with the Spirit's output, though I don't know the Audiolab. The Naim boards and Prefix I had were .18 mV sensitivity but coped perfectly well with Lyra's 0.5 mV output. Also, that 0.36 mV of the Spirit may well be at the American standard (at 3.5ish cms/sec (?) rather than the European 5 cms/sec. Multiplying up (by 1.46) gives over 0.5 mV. That does seem a bit high for a Transfig., though, so maybe not.

Agree, there's nothing to get exercised about with these figures [emoji4]

Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

I would just plug it all in and see if you like the result first of all. It may be all fine.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Primalsea

I would just plug it all in and see if you like the result first of all. It may be all fine.

---

Exactly!

That's what I always do anyway. It won't hurt anything. If there's a mismatch, you'll hear it.

Thanks for the advice- I will know late November, early December when my power amp arrives.Ill post my findings. I’m hoping for a reasonable match so I don’t have to change the cartridge straight away.

You certainly won't overload the input (the maximum input alowed is 10mV, or an overload headroom of 29dB), so absolutely no damage will occur. The cartridge will also be well matched as regards load impedance.

As I said, just try it out and see how you get on. You may find however that the range of the volume control becomes limited.