loading resistor question

Romaxim, in a nutshell:

The issue is that with LOMC, the inductance of the cartridge and the capacitance of the cable and input form a tank circuit resonant at ultrasonic or RF frequencies. The activity of the cartridge on the LP is enough to excite the tuned circuit that results.

If your preamp is stable with RFI then this is no worries. If the preamp is unstable (common with many SS phono preamps) the loading might be quite critical. Essentially the loading is reducing the 'Q' of the circuit, which in turn reduces the intensity of the RFI or ultrasonic noise that is generated. So a load is good practice in any event.

Rodman99999, thanks for pointing that out. If I read that ad properly, it still sounds like there can be an issue with RFI caused by the tank circuit I mentioned.

However if this preamp is immune to RFI, the loading of the cartridge will not be found to have much effect. In our preamps we find that the loading effects the background noise a little but has no effect on the tonality.

Yes, the resistors themselves do make a difference!