10X5 is a moving coil and Elys is Moving Magnet. MM and MC do sound very different. At 47K loading, most MC will sound too bright. They need lower loadings to tame their brightness. Other than brightness, other areas like bass, soundstage, etc. may not sound right. That said, some MC can sound great at 47k. It all depends on the rest of your system. I would get a MC card (if available)from Creek if you want to try MC cartridges. It doesn't hurt trying the Dynavector with your current Creek setup though.
Cartridge impedance: How important is it ??
I am considering a Dynavector 10X5 high out put MC for my Rega P3-24 turntable which came with their Elys MM. The Dynavector has and impedance of 1000ohms; Rega's Elys is 47,000. I have a Creek SE MM phono card which I have been told may not work with the Dynavector because of its low impedance. I would appreciate some advice on this issue, and if anyone has compared the performance of these two cartridges.
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Hi Sunnyjim, I think what you're trying to say, is that you expect the 10X5 to want to see a 1K load. The DCR of the 10X5 is 150 ohms. You can link the the Dynavector site from my Dynavector page over here for all of the specs: http://www.galibierdesign.com/prd_dyna.html. There, you'll note that it puts out 2.5mV which is slightly more than half of an MM's output. Stated another way (from an output perspective only), a 10X5 is about 1 click on the volume knob less "loud" than an MM. Now, from a loading perspectve, I wouldn't discount the possibility that a 10X5 wouldn't be fine at 47K. Many of us are finding that as we dial in our systems to a higher degree, that we are minimizing the loading on our cartridges. This is very system dependent, and don't let anyone tell you the loading value that you'll end up liking ... anymore than they can tell you what your favorite color is. Loading is to a certain extent about trade-offs, and just because you've tamed an ultrasonic resonance "perfectly", doesn't mean that this is the loading value that you'll like most - in the CONTEXT OF YOUR SYSTEM and YOUR MUSICAL VALUES. If your phono stage doesn't make it easy for you to experiment with loading, you can use a RCA "Y" connector (2 females, 1 male). Plug your phono cable into one female and fashion loading plugs out of inexpensive RCA's which you then plug into the second female. This will teach you a lot about what you like and you can make quick swaps after making a few different loading plug sets. Just remember, that your loading decision about any cartridge should be revisited if you change anything in your signal chain. Oh ... and did I mention that the better you set up your geometry, the less you'll feel compelled to load down your cartridge (to compensate for the tracing distortion that's bugging you)? Cheers, Thom @ Galiber |