Knowing Nothing About Capacitance...

Dear Rich: I think that is the load impedance through a step-up transformer.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Great! Thanks.

So why does AT make the OC-9ml with only 20 ohm impedance? The other carts I've seen are all higher. Is it advantageous at all?

Raul,

You're absolutely right -- I mistakenly said capacitance. The AT-OC9mlii says that the Recommended load impedance is 20 ohms. The Denon says that its MC phono stage is 100 ohms.

By the way, Tvad, the MM phono input for the Denon is 47k.

So, is the initial poster's statement accurate that at 100 ohms on the preamp side my cart is likely to sound brighter than it should?

Thanks to all of you for answering so quickly.

Hey Rich, the loading you are referring to is impedance, measured in ohms, not capacitance. Moving coil cartridges are not affected by capacitance. You also cannot hurt anything by having the incorrect loading, just different tonal balance.

The sound with the Denon should be slightly brighter and more forward than optimum. The degree to which this appears depends on the rest of your system, your set up, and your expectations.

I had a control on my pre-amp which allowed me to change the load on the fly - the results were quite interesting as you heard the sound go from bright/forward at 47K to dark, dull and recessed at 10ohms. The changes were not ambiguous at all but it was clear to me that I actually liked the load to be a little lower than the range recommended by the manufacturer, probably because my speakers were on the bright/forward side.

In your case the cartridge might sound a bit brighter than optimum. If this is so, you might be able to get someone to alter the Denon by putting some resistors in the phono imput which will reduce its imput to 20ohms. I don't know about your Denon - a lot of phono stages have provision for adding/changing resistors conviently to effect a proper match. FWIW.

Dear Rich: Maybe you make an error when you write the thread because capacitance is measured in uf not Ohms, Ohms are for impedance. Btw, 100 Ohms will be fine with your cartridge no problem about.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.