Cartridge Impedance

Let's see, I split the infinitive "to annoy".  But most people don't know what an infinitive is, these days.  And the rule on that has loosened by convention. What else?

Seriously, my message is that if you learn something more than merely the answer to your simple question, perhaps next time you won't have to ask.  Also, I personally cannot stand knowing the answer (to almost any factual question) without at least trying to discover the why of it.

Just to be more pedantic so as to possibly annoy the OP, "impedance" is DUE to the inductance and capacitance coupled with the resistances.  If there were no reactive components, i.e., capacitance and inductance, then one would only have to deal with "resistance" which is by definition a constant at all frequencies (although in real life, resistors, some types more than other types, have minor properties of capacitance and inductance, at extreme frequencies).

Raul, I beg to differ.  Most hi-gain phono stages are "stressed" by using a high input resistance, e.g., 47K ohms, rather than using a conservative 100R with a typical LOMC.  Well designed high gain phono stages tolerate anything up to 47K without problems.  (Here and in my above post, I was referring only to MC phono stages that do NOT incorporate an SUT in order to achieve the gain needed for an LOMC.)  Probably Raul is doing the same.

The reason LOMC cartridges are relatively tolerant to capacitance (vs MM cartridges) is their very very low inductance, in the 50-100 micro-henry range, as compared to MM cartridges which exhibit inductance in the ~500 milli-henry range.  The inductance combined with capacitance introduced by the IC and by the input gain stage can cause a high frequency resonance.  With LOMCs, this occurs at very high frequencies, well beyond audibility or the capacity of any speaker to reproduce, because of the low inductance and given any reasonable amount of capacitance.  With MMs, you have to be careful about added capacitance, because the resonant peak is moved downward near to the audio frequency range due to inductance, but some benefit from just the right amount  of added capacitance which boosts treble in a desirable way.  This is the way I understand it, and I welcome any corrections.

As a rule of thumb, the input resistance of the phono stage should be about 10X the internal resistance of the phono cartridge, to assure a flat response from 20Hz to 20kHz, all other things being equal. So, first you have to know the internal resistance of the phono cartridge. For a moving coil, this will be the resistance across each of the two coils of wire that produce L and R channel signals. The manufacturer will or should publish such data. Measuring it yourself can be dangerous to the coils, because meters put a current across the coil that can burn it up if the wires are delicate, which they usually are. Technically, "impedance" is different from resistance, but for purposes of the match between MC cartridge and MC phono input, the two terms can be used interchangeably, although it’s true that the phono cable and the gain device at the phono input (whether tube or transistor) will have an input capacitance that also adds to the capacitance seen by the cartridge. (Impedance is defined as resistance dependent upon frequency. Capacitance adds to resistance at any frequency, to affect impedance at that frequency.) MC cartridges are relatively insensitive to low levels of capacitance (e.g., anything at or below 150pF, but this is not a hard number), because their inductance is very very low compared to MM cartridges (more than 1000X lower, in fact).

So, for a LOMC cartridge, the internal resistance will typically be in the range of 10 ohms, unless you’re dealing with a Denon 103 or others like it that have a relatively high internal resistance of 40 ohms (as I recall). If your LOMC has internal resistance of 10 ohms, then obviously your phono stage can be loaded with a 100 ohm resistor or any higher value, and you can expect this match will not roll off frequency response, much, below 20kHz. Still, some of us have found that loading an LOMC at 1000 ohms or even 47K ohms, for two examples, can yield a more open sound. A salient point is that the load resistor actually is loading the phono stage, so if your phono stage is very stable, 47K ohms works fine. If you are using a high resistance LOMC, like the Denon 103, then obviously you are going to experience some high frequency roll-off if you run it into 100 ohms. Some guys like this effect. As Chakster and others have said, you also lose some signal voltage when you get down below a 10X ratio between input (phono) R and output (cartridge) R. 

Chakster mentioned "critical damping".  As I understand it, critical damping occurs at the particular load resistance where you first start to lose signal voltage to ground; the idea is to go down only to the point where that phenomenon just starts to occur.  You would need test instruments to achieve that goal accurately.  I don’t agree with someone who wrote that you can use the load resistor as a sort of tone control by ranging it from say 100 ohms to 47K ohms. In my experience, once you get above the 10X ratio, there is not a great deal of difference to be heard as you approach 47K, except a very subtle sensation (in my system) of greater open-ness to the sound. It’s subjective, but if you were measuring frequency response, you wouldn’t see a great deal of difference.