Kohm ohm
 

This is exactly what my clearaudio Goldfinger statement manual states.

Generally 47 kohms is recommended for most tube equipment.

Loading between 100 ohms and 1 kohms may be used for some solid state for best results. We strongly suggest starting at 47 kohm loading down until breaking in has been completed.

We achieved the best results with a loading of 200 ohms.


So, I have the c2500 and my choices are 50 ohm, 100 ohm, 200 ohm, 400 ohm, 1000 ohm.

To me 1000 ohm is too bright. Is 47 kohm that they mentioned in the manual, 50 ohm? Or 5000 ohm, which I do not have access to?

Oops. I am using all tube equipment.

I think that is dated information. That info came from the days when tube gear didn't have the gain it does today and as a result, one often ran into noise problems, loss of dynamics, bass, etc. (ergo when you optimally load, you'll lose 1/2 the cartridges output.)

Today's tube phono sections have much more gain and therefore I'd definitely try different loads and see what sounds the best. Alternatively, you may want to look at your phono cable, etc. as you may have tuned your system for your previous system.

Thank-you.

Just to be clear on the mathematics/conversion. Is 47 Kohm, 4700 ohm?

I have found that 200 and 400 seem to be the best sounding to me. It would be nice if there was something in between.

I have some nice Kimber select cables in between the pre and the phono stage. I will try different cables to see how that affects the loading.

Thanks.

Current generation Mcinotsh gear does not have a phono stage input setting. Don't worry about the 47Kohm advice as your phono stage is probably already fixed at that. Just concern yourself with the cartridge loading setting of which the GFS can comfortably do up to 1000ohm depending on material after around 50hours break-in.

It depends on your phono stage & the quality of your vinyl. The GFS running off the C1000T with TFK ECC803S set at 1000ohm loading for current audiophile grade re released master pressings sounds great. Older material can sound edgy & I dial down to taste.

Thank you. :)

47 Kohm is equivalent to 47,000 ohms (not 4,700); this is the typical MM input.

I wouldn't worry about it. You can run MC carts into 47Kohm, and sometimes this is fine, but the sonic results will be very dependent on both cartridge and phono stage (and their complex interaction). If your results are "fine", then you get the added benefit of reducing sensitivity to phono connector/wire quality, which is why some recommend these higher ohm values for MC carts (the Benz PP-1 uses a fixed 22,000 ohm input for this stated reason).

That said, I've not yet had a situation where I've ended up with more than 200 ohms on an MC cart. The mid-output MC's (e.g. the Clearaudio) would typically be fed into a range of 200 ohms to 1,000 ohms.