Help. Wife says Teres 340 Is too bright.

Even later to the party ... heed Doug's observations and revisit your entire signal chain.

I strongly suspect that you are shooting the messenger (Teres / O-L / Benz). With your new vinyl rig, you have a lower noise floor which yields increased dynamics (bot micro and macro). You're going to hear a lot more - both good and bad, and this demands that you sort things out.

Amongst other things to try, I would not hesitate to swap out phono stages (you're running a Wright WPP 100C?). The Wright is a wonderful unit at its asking price, and I'd never argue against someone getting one, but your front end is now getting to the point where it deserves better (and is likely telling you this).

If Raul joins this thread, he'll correctly expound on the possibility that the energy being put out by your front end is resulting in input overload on your phono stage. This can sound like tracing distortion, but can also mask itself as other distortions. The phono stage is something you'll want to eliminate as a possibility.

I have no experience with your C-J amplifiers, but I'd heed Doug's advice on this as well.

Did I mention to get an arc protractor?

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier

That you're loading at 42 ohms is telling me that there are likely some nasties elsewhere in your system, including (possibly) setup, but likely a component mismatch.

I feel your pain. I've been there.

You mention that this 42 ohm load is unchanged from your VPI days. My sense is that you've been responding to down-stream nasties in your system since your VPI days, and that you've been putting your knee squarely on your cartridge's throat in an attempt to tame these problems.

My take is that the increased resolution of your current 'table is only magnifying what you've been sensing all along.

Palasr, Dre_j and I have been dialoging (independently and together) about this loading thing for some time. I'm coming to the conclusion that (in general) as other things improve in a system, that minimal loading is always better.

This is just another case (as with tracking force and anti-skate), where just enough (erring if anything on too little) is the right amount. Too much (loading, anti-skate, tracking force) always squashes the life out of the music.

This doesn't necessarily mean running an MC wide open at 47K, but at the same time, dropping down to 4-8 times the DCR of the cartridge is (in most instances) to be excessive.

So ... I think you'd be able to get a good baseline by finding a nice 50-60w p-p tube amplifier to borrow from someone local to you. Of course, playing with a phono stage or full function preamp would be instructive as well.

In all cases however, I'd expect you to arrive at cartridge loading in the 100-500 ohm range for your Benz - once you've resolved other system issues.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier

Hi Art,

Yes, a starting point of 5-10 times the DCR of the cartridge is a good starting point for loading experiments, but I like to do the "unreasonable" and listen to the cartridge running "wide open" - just to set limits and to understand how the cartridge is responding.

I've recently taken to running my XV1s with no additional loading resistors on my Atmasphere MP-1 preamp, for example. Now, in the particular system it's hooked up to, the top end is a bit challenged (5" Lowther A-55 in an Azzolina horn), so I would by no means consider this a universal proclamation.

In my second room I'm running Daedalus Ulysses speakers, and my Artiisan Cadenza (OEM Benz LP) is running through a Quicksilver step-up that reflects a load of about 320 ohms to the cartridge. These speakers have an extended top end, and I find this loading to be fine.

Use the numbers as a guideline or starting point and nothing more. I'd expect that as you sort things out, that you'll migrate upwards of 100 ohms - to as high as 500 ohms, perhaps.

Cheers,
Thom

Hi Art,

I missed any reference to your using step-up trannies. Which ones are you using? Step-up ratio (or alternatively, dB of gain)?

So, if your cartridge is seeing a 42R load (and assuming you are loading the secondary of your step-up trannie), this would mean that there's a loading resistor in the 4K7 to 5K range.

You might try a higher quality resistor. Some of my customers report pretty good results. Loading the secondary however (the side of the trannie that "talks" to the phono stage) is less affected by resistor quality than is loading the primary (different values would be used for the primary, btw).

-----

I'm familiar with two of George Wright's phono stages - both of which were derived from your model. One of them is the phono stage in the WPP100c and the other was a stand-alone model - the number which escapes me at the moment.

Both of them had very high gain for an MM but not quite enough for a low output MC. I'd say that they were ideal with a medium o/p cartridge - say in the 1 to 1.5 mv range. On both of these units, he had a pot to adjust the gain, but frankly, it was too twitchy. At the price point, George was trying to anticipate too wide a range of cartridges - an impossible task - to try to be all things to all people (cartridges). I think he was facing resistance to step-up trannies and trying to deliver an honest product at a price point (which he did).

George put out a great value product for the money - not in the class of even a Hagerman Coronet-I, but still an honest and musical product.

Rest in peace, George ... you were one of the good guys and we all miss you.

I still suspect a new phono stage is in your future ;-)

Cheers,
Thom