Hi Geradff, A few points on moving coil cartridges. Decreasing the size of the load resistor (say from 47Kohms to 1Kohms) will tend to dampen the high end, Which may or may not be a good thing depending on the rest of your system. Some say a large resistor is more natural and some say it is too bright. Trust your ears.
I think you may still be a little confused on the subject of loading. A large load is one that draws a lot of current from a device. Small resistors draw more current than large resistors, so small resistors are said to be bigger loads. Your terminolgy of "increasing the resistive load" is a bit confusing. It would be better to say "increase the resistance", which means to draw less current with a bigger resistor.
As far as damping the cantilever, as the coils move in the magnetic field, they generate alternating current. First it flows in one direction and then in the other. As you decrease the resistance of the load, you generate more current. This creates a sort of electrical inertia that has to be overcome every time they change direction. The current in the coils creates a magnetic field that must be reversed to get the current to flow in the opposite direction. You get the same effect when you try to hand crank a generator. It gets harder to crank if you increase the load, i.e. you load it with a smaller resitance and draw more current from it. Hope this has been of some help.
I think you may still be a little confused on the subject of loading. A large load is one that draws a lot of current from a device. Small resistors draw more current than large resistors, so small resistors are said to be bigger loads. Your terminolgy of "increasing the resistive load" is a bit confusing. It would be better to say "increase the resistance", which means to draw less current with a bigger resistor.
As far as damping the cantilever, as the coils move in the magnetic field, they generate alternating current. First it flows in one direction and then in the other. As you decrease the resistance of the load, you generate more current. This creates a sort of electrical inertia that has to be overcome every time they change direction. The current in the coils creates a magnetic field that must be reversed to get the current to flow in the opposite direction. You get the same effect when you try to hand crank a generator. It gets harder to crank if you increase the load, i.e. you load it with a smaller resitance and draw more current from it. Hope this has been of some help.