A good phono section will have less ticks and pops even though it is wider bandwidth. Its always nice to find out that your LP collection isn’t as bad off as you thought it was.
What most people don’t realize is that the phono preamp, in addition to enough gain and proper EQ, must also be stable and resistant to Radio Frequency Interference (RFI). This is because a significant amount of RFI is generated by the cartridge itself in the form of bursts of energy at the resonant frequency of the inductance of the cartridge which is in parallel with the capacitance of the interconnect cable. The RFI can cause ticks and pops due to overload of the phono section input. That resonant peak I mentioned can be about 30dB!!
Many designers don’t realize that- hence phono sections that don’t deal with this issue very well.
A side benefit of RFI immunity and stability is that the cartridge no longer has to be ’loaded’ to sound right. This allows it to be more supple and can thus trace high frequencies easier. IOW loading a cartridge causes it to do more work and that in turn stiffens the cantilever, just like shorting the terminals of a woofer makes it stiffer.
What most people don’t realize is that the phono preamp, in addition to enough gain and proper EQ, must also be stable and resistant to Radio Frequency Interference (RFI). This is because a significant amount of RFI is generated by the cartridge itself in the form of bursts of energy at the resonant frequency of the inductance of the cartridge which is in parallel with the capacitance of the interconnect cable. The RFI can cause ticks and pops due to overload of the phono section input. That resonant peak I mentioned can be about 30dB!!
Many designers don’t realize that- hence phono sections that don’t deal with this issue very well.
A side benefit of RFI immunity and stability is that the cartridge no longer has to be ’loaded’ to sound right. This allows it to be more supple and can thus trace high frequencies easier. IOW loading a cartridge causes it to do more work and that in turn stiffens the cantilever, just like shorting the terminals of a woofer makes it stiffer.