How is my loading affecting my sound?

Dear Lakefrontroad: The Groove comes regulary with an impedance of 100 Ohms. In order to change that impedance you have to ask where in the circuit board and which resistor you have to change for a different impedance. Likely your unit has that 100 Ohms impedance that is a point to start.

I loaded my XV-1 at around 700 Ohms and with a VTF 0f 2.4 grs. and sounds great.

+++++ " What difference should the loading make? " +++++

If you open to much that impedance: 47K, you will have a bright sound and if you close it you can have a dull sound. The load impedance affect firstly to the high frequencies quality reproduction.

This cartridge has a flat frequency between 500 and 800 Ohms: you have to try in that impedance range.

The Xv-1 is trully a natural/transparent cartridge with a near perfect tonal balance top to bottom. There are other characteristics but when you achive these ones you will be on target.

Btw, impressive audio system you have!!!!!! Congratulations """""

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Loading is another word for resistance/capacitance or total impedance. It will still play but when impedances' match it is like putting two of the same size pipes together, verses having a 4 inch feeder pipe and connecting it to a one inch pipe. The flow will not be as good being too compressed and just the opposite is to have a one inch pipe feeder going into 4 inch pipe, too uncontrolled. I hope this helps.

Here's some theory from Bent Audio. In short, too high a value will bring up the top end, too low a value will do the reverse.

The Bent Audio site provides such a clear explanation, it's a pity it applies only to systems which employ a step up transformer in the path between cartridge and phono preamp (or "phonostage" if it's built into your main preamp.)

There are a number of threads (about 50) here on Agon that go into great detail on (moving coil) cartridge loading. You can access them easily by selecting 'analog' for the category field, and 'loading' for the keyword.

Dear lakefrontroad: Normally your Groove comes with an impedance of 100 Ohms and if you want to change it you have to change inside the impedance resistor: Tom Evans people has to support about.

I use my XV-1 with around 700 Ohms and a VTF of 2.4 grs: great performance. This cartridge has flat frequency between 500 and 800 Ohms.

If you open the load impedance: 47K you could have a bright sound and if the impedance is to low you could have a dull sound. The load impedance affect likely to the high frequency range. You have to be carefully on this subject for not equalized your cartridge signal.

The XV-1 has a very neutral/transparent resolution and almost perfect tonal balance top to bottom, of course there are other characteristics about but when you achieve those ones you are really near the cartridge target.

Btw, impressive audio system you have, those great speakers!!!!!!!! Congratulations!!!!!!

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

The last few paragraphs on the Bent page regarding the effects are generic and apply to both active and transformer stages.

Dear Ezekiel: Well done!!

regards and enjoy the music.
raul.

The load is currently at 562 ohms. I'm trying to understand why Dynavector recommends 30 ohms and what 562 ohms will do to the sound.

Since I can't change the load myself, how do I know what to change it to?

Lakefront Road,

Dynavector recommend greater than 30 ohms. They truly don't specify. I have been going nuts changing impedance until I get it right. I am back to 100 ohms. I started at 100 & moved up slowly to 1000 and now back to 100. I think it is preamp dependant at some level. I sold my Groove for this reason alone. When it came time to experiment with loading I couldn't. I broke my Urushi & purchased a new cartridge & needed to change my load. Now I just open up my phono stage & unplug the resistors (Vishay S-102, or you can use whatever you want in this type of configuration) and switch values. I have several values between 100 & 1000. I don't have 700 or 800 though, which I would like to try. I am using 500 on 2 of my cartridges currently. The Condor & the Eminent. I am still slightly confused with this as changing VTA can also "tune" the sound. I know that HP uses his Dynavector fully open & a few friends use the Dynavector w. 1000 ohm loading. I really believe it has more to do w. the preamp. My guess is considering the Groove to be solid state & similar in some ways to mine you will be fine w. 562 ohm load. I wonder if memebers can chime in here & recommend a fully open Groove & use plug in resistors @ the input terminals?

PS, I ended up using my Bheringer mike w. my computer Spectrum Analysis software to do some room tuning. A lot more to go. Thanks for the advise.

Does loading also effect dynamics? If so, please describe.

I have found that it does. It can restrain dynamics when it is too low. But if it is too open then the treble becomes siblant amongst other things.