Ortofon Per Windfeld Load Impedance?

Zieman, since our preamp is balanced we tried exactly that, since the cartridge is a low impedance source. The result- no difference. Single-ended; hard to say what you might hear since single-ended cables tend to be more susceptible to coloration.

You can indeed hear the effect of the load being too low or too high. **That** is why you need to load the cartridge at critical damping *before* you mess with cables!

Atmasphere, Can you, or have you, done the "ring" deal at the end of the phono lead? VS. the cart pins? Have you measured any huge differences that would have you deviate from mfgrs' recommendations regarding loading? What three syllable word is applicable to cart and cable in sum? I know I read this somewhere... I do appreciate reading about measurements that confirm my listening results.

...the cartridge should be loaded to what is known as
'critical damping'. This is the point wherin the loading value damps ringing,
but does not roll off the normal response of the cartridge. An excellent way
to do this is to 'ring' the cartridge with a squarewave generator and observe
the output on an oscilloscope. A ringing waveform will be seen in an
unloaded cartridge. Installing a loading resistance will reduce the ringing
until a bare amount of overshoot is seen, this will be at or near critical
damping.

Atmasphere (Threads | Answers)

Atmasphere knows his analog like few others considering he builds his
products around the (balanced) analog source signal.

However, I have to wonder how 98% of audiophiles who don't own square
wave generators and oscilloscopes can ever hope to properly load their MC
carts?

I use the 25 times internal resistance +/- 50% method (taught to me by
member Nsgarch), and it works quite well.

Duh... By ear? By utilizing the MFGRs recommended starting points? By posting for advice on audiophile forums?

Here's what you can do, if you don't have a scope and a generator. Buy a Cardas test record and a digital multimeter. They are both good tools for any audiophile to have and can be bought for not much moola. The Cardas has a band that plays a 1kHz tone at 0db. (DON'T play it over your spkrs, unless the volume is turned off or way down.) Start with a load resistor that is way higher than what's likely to be "critical". While playing the test tone, measure AC voltage at the output of your phono stage and record it. Now reduce the value of the resistor stepwise, and keep measuring ACV at the output of the phono stage, until you first detect a drop in voltage. Go back up from there by one step and you've probably got a pretty good approximation of "critical damping".