Ortofon Per Windfeld Load Impedance?

Zieman,
Still waiting for the white paper you promised us.

Thanks.

Hi,
I have upgraded from a Jubilee to a Windfeld and it CLEARLY needs a HIGHER -- much higher loading to sound open. I can only go to 1k ohm on my GCPH but think it can still take more. 500 ohm sound already 'crammed in'which was more than a good thing for the Jubilee. I run it on a SME-V with SME 10 tt. GCPH phono-pre, SME vdH Silver phono cable. Rest is ML 326S, PASS 350.5 and Burmester 961.

Axelwahl, How do you like the pw compared to the Jubilee? Is it worth the extra bucks? I thought Ortofon marketed the PW as kind of a super-Jubilee, so it is surprising that you are finding that the PW needs a very different load resistor. Thanks.

Hi Lewm,

How much better do I like the Windfeld to the Jubilee?

If you like your music more resolved e.g. like Lyras, and have better, firmer bass, plus a more 'natural' (more complete?) sound than an e.g. Lyra Dorian the Windfeld has it --- but refer back to my system which is highly resolving. The Lyra Dorian would sound more 'skeletal', less 'natural' by comparison --- as would the more pricy ones as is often mentioned.

Is it worth the extra bucks? This depends on the rest of your system i.e. it may be that it will not show that difference (better top and bottom, keeping the 'nice' Jubilee mids) that much in terms of resolution, naturalness and 'cleaner' bass.

Is the Windfeld loading surprising? Maybe not, since more lately some top MC's give nice results with 47k! Why would that be? I think it has to do with the flux-damping, which prevents the trebble lift going over the top --- only explaination I have come up with. I found 1k loading to sound right on, even better than 500 ohm as was used by Dirk Sommer also having tested it recently (he did not have 1k ohm available on his Einstein and sounded just a little less enthusiastic, when reading between the lines). Also know, that DS is an SPU fan i.e. highly dynamic and maybe a bit more 'chirpy' than 'neutral'. The higher loading (1k) will just take you in this direction.

One more interesting (more confising?) point: The factory guys (Ortofon) say the >10k ohm in the brochure was a misprint and should have read > 10 ohm. Mind you, THAT changes not much, since 1k is also > 10 ohms, right?

I have tried it with 47k and got problems with the SME-10 motor controller (3 phase, 40 Mhz clock etc.) coming through as 'line-noise'. This might be no issue with a different tt, and/or phono-stage, so I can't say much positive on 47k loading - AND it sound too 'fluffy' what you would get when loading e.g. a Jubilee with 1k.

I hope this is of some help.
Best,
Axel