If you ask J Carr about loading, you will find that he says the same thing that I do.
What is happening is the cartridge inductance interacts with the tone arm cable capacitance to form a tuned Radio Frequency (RF) circuit. It resonates when energized by the cartridge itself. This causes ultrasonic or RF energy to be injected into the input of the preamp.
If the preamp is stable with such energy you will hear no effect from loading. If the preamp is unstable and reacts poorly to such energy, the loading resistor is then used to detune the tank circuit (another way of saying 'resonant circuit') and thus it sounds better with the loading.
I have tested many LOMC cartridges- when you 'ring' them with a squarewave and then test to see what a loading resistor does to the squarewave, you see that it has absolutely no effect whatsoever at audio frequencies. Its all happening at much higher frequencies.
IOW, if loading sounds better it means the phono preamp is unstable. You might want to read this thread in which J Carr is quite active:
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?15077-Cartridge-Loading-A-Misnomer
I met up with Jonathan at the Munich show last year and we had a conversation about this- and touched on the fact that loading the cartridge might well have a negative effect on its ability to track. He touches on this in the opening post of thread at the link.
What is happening is the cartridge inductance interacts with the tone arm cable capacitance to form a tuned Radio Frequency (RF) circuit. It resonates when energized by the cartridge itself. This causes ultrasonic or RF energy to be injected into the input of the preamp.
If the preamp is stable with such energy you will hear no effect from loading. If the preamp is unstable and reacts poorly to such energy, the loading resistor is then used to detune the tank circuit (another way of saying 'resonant circuit') and thus it sounds better with the loading.
I have tested many LOMC cartridges- when you 'ring' them with a squarewave and then test to see what a loading resistor does to the squarewave, you see that it has absolutely no effect whatsoever at audio frequencies. Its all happening at much higher frequencies.
IOW, if loading sounds better it means the phono preamp is unstable. You might want to read this thread in which J Carr is quite active:
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?15077-Cartridge-Loading-A-Misnomer
I met up with Jonathan at the Munich show last year and we had a conversation about this- and touched on the fact that loading the cartridge might well have a negative effect on its ability to track. He touches on this in the opening post of thread at the link.