Phono preamp or SUT for low output moving coil

@viridian Thanks for pointing that out.  Do you have any idea what would be considered low impedance? Sutherland's website doesn't give a range. I'm using a Hana ML cartridge and it works well.  I checked with Ron Sutherland before I bought the TZ Vibe. 

Dear @Viridian: Neither the Van den Hul Grasshopper II.

@dcaudio  , do it a favor and stay away of transimpedance/current phono stage designs instead your choice most be for voltage phono stage designs. SUT always is an inferior choice against an active high gain pgono stage design.

You can look for the PS Audio Stellar that outperforms any MM/SUT combination (tube or SS ) .

PS Audio Stellar Phono phono preamplifier Page 2 | Stereophile.com

and Fremer compared against the CH P1/X1, Ypsilon and others ( with prices over 20-30 times the humble PS Audio price tag. ) using top SAT tonearm and Caliburn TT and cartridges of the caliber of Lyra Atlas SL.

Obviously is interesting to read the M.Fremer review including the real time measurements page.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,

R.

sls883, well you have been using the combo and are clearly thrilled with the results. So there can be no greater endorsement.

The internal impedance of your cartridge is 8 ohms, and you have said it works excellently, the DL103 is 40 ohms and the Hana E series and original S series are 30 ohms, which I would think would be too high. I believe the new version 2 of the S series has a similar impedance to your cartridge.

I dont know if there is an exact point at which a combo would become incompatible, but conceptually the transimpedance stage presents a dead short to the cartridge. Since it is current based, maximum signal transfer will occur with a matched load, ie zero ohms internal cartridge impedance, so it would appear the lower the better, at least in theory. But as we all know in this game, theory is hardly the be all and end all.

@viridian Thank you for the information.  Good to know. 

It's very difficult to set a firm upper limit for the internal impedance of an LOMC cartridge that you want to work "well" with a current driven phono stage. This is because each brand of current driven phono stage will present a different input impedance, which is always going to be above zero ohms, the ideal value for current drive. But you cannot have a true zero ohm input impedance, because that is a short circuit to ground. So each matchup between cartridge and current drive phono stage is different in terms of loading the stage. A decent rule of thumb is to use cartridges with internal impedance less than ~12 ohms, and then it's trial and error. (I don't use the term "transimpedance" because that implies that all matches do work fine, and that is not my experience, nor does it conform to the facts as I perceive them.)