Cartridge Loading into Step-Up Transformer


I have read a lot about preamps and phono stages having the ability to put a load resistor in parallel to the cartridge.  Some products have flip switches, others have solderable terminals inside the unit to put in a custom valued resistor and others have a pair of external RCA jacks to put a resistor here.  Mt preamp has the latter.  However, if an external  setup transformer is used into a MM input, what is typically done to accommodate a load resistor?  Is the resistor in parallel with the primary or the secondary?  And is the resistance value typically different for a given cartridge that worked well into an active MC stage vs. a setup?  Any experiences, ideas, suggestions, etc., would be greatly appreciated.
John
jafox

Showing 1 response by jafox

Thank you very much for the input here.  The pasted links above provide for much education on the handling of the required gain and ultimately the loading.  I read this material several times to understand the subtleties. 

I just bought to Hashimoto HMU-7 SU transformers to use with a newly diamond re-tipped AQ 7000 which has one of the lowest coil resistances at 2 ohms.  And I will look to use both the 1:15 and 1:30 options of this SU.

Using the rule that the input impedance of component B (the SU transformer) must be at least 10x the output impedance of component A (the cartridge), I have just done the math to determine the starting points for some load resistors in parallel with the 47k MM input and compare with none here at all.  Then I can tune by ear to get the optimal.  This will be fun.

Thank you again.