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Ortofon carts are too hot for my phono preamp?

When I need hardware advice, I always come to Audiogon for the true experts.  Thanks in advance and happy Easter!

So after much trial and error, I THINK I have deduced that my Ortofon 2M Bronze and 2M Black cartridges are too hot for my Avid Pulsus phono preamp.  Some softer recordings are fine, but I think I am hearing some distortion with loud transients and even sometimes on relatively loud vocals.

I have a Pro-ject tube phono preamp I swap in and I don’ t hear that distortion. I never hear that distortion with other sources. 

Given my investment in 3 Ortofon 2M carts (1 Bronze, 1 Black, 1 Black SE) and the Pulsus, is there anything I can do to step down that signal from the carts without doing any damage to the sound?  

Any other thoughts?

(BTW the 2 turntables I am using are a Rega P3/24 and an older Rotel.  Meridian preamp has variable gain settings on inputs and I can hear the distortion at any setting.)

jji666

Showing 3 responses by billstevenson

billstevenson
583 posts
 

viridian said it best.

billstevenson
583 posts
 

I know this is kind of a crazy idea, but desperate times call for desperate measures and all that.  What you need seems to me is a bit of line loss between the cartridge(s) and the phono stage.  Do you have an extra long set of phono cables you could try?  I have a set that I use for my subs, for example, that reach across the room.  If you have something like that you might give it a try just to see if it helps.  The guy I get all my wires from could make a set of special phono cables that would provide the mathematically correct amount of resistance to get the job done.  If you have a guy like that you might give him a call.  If you want my guy's contact info send me a private message.

billstevenson
583 posts
 

"Bill, Not a good idea because of capacitance.  Capacitance will cause a HF roll off probably before you notice a loss of gain."

I agree, my idea was to test to see if a loss of gain helped by using a set of long cables if they are available.  Then having a pair of phono cables made with an increase in resistance, but by being normal length not an increase in capacitance.  Steven Huang who owns Audio Sensibility in Toronto is an electrical engineer and my go-to guy for all things wire.  I believe he may be able to help.

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