I thought was was pretty much what I conveyed in my post. There is some leeway to play with gain especially if you have a good preamp. The poorer the preamp or in cases of passives or going directly into your amp the less leeway you have. The preamps in most integrateds and receivers tend to be on the less than stellar side so I'd rather have a good match and prefer the device made for the specific purpose of amplifying the signal from the cartridge do the heavy lifting.
Oh, yeah, well, passives are a whole different bag altogether. I just think in the context of the conversation about the math of best match in terms of output voltage and input sensitivity with a phono pre and a line pre or integrated -- if someone is looking for a rule that can just be universally applied based on the specs, it's worth noting that there's a fair degree of leeway and range in the operating spectrum for what is going to work in terms of where the gain comes from, really in any kind of gain staging.
One thing is the stated output from the cartridge is measured at 5,6cm/s. It´s not that easy to know how the records are cut. Can´t speak much of contemporary records, but my guess is that most records don´t come near this velocity, it´s likely generally much lower.
I may be starting to understand. So, if I have the volume on my receiver/integrated ALL the way UP and THEN input more than 500 mV (or whatever the stated input sensitivity is) into it - that's when the clipping occurs? Is that it?
As far as the "next gain setting" goes, my Pro Ject Tube box DS stops at 60, and that's what I run the Denon 103 into. I like the sound, even if I'm missing some punch. If I wind up getting the SS Phono Box DS - it has a 65 dB setting, I may try the Denon with that, to see what I'm missing. But I'm in no hurry, for that particular purpose. I'd much rather use a tube phono with the DL-103, though. Not sure if too many tube phono's offer 65 dB gain, or above.
Benzion- A couple things based on this and other posts- 1) Try not to get hung up on input sensitivity and possible overloading to clipping. Input sensitivity is the minimum voltage required at the input in order for the amplifier to produce its rated power. It input voltage is less, it will not produce rated power and your S/N is likely not going to be as good if the source voltage was higher (nominally speaking). 2) It is common and desirable for sources to output much more voltage than the input sensitivity of the amplifier. For example my CD player has an output voltage of 2.4 Volts while my amplifier input sensitivity is 1V. It sounds incredible. And yes, it will allow my amp to go into clipping, but not until ear splitting volume. Amplifier rated power is amplifier rated power. The higher source voltage ensures that my amplifier will make rated power (e.g. 100 watts / channel, very loudly and very cleanly). I may just get there a little sooner on the volume knob- no big deal. 3) Phono preamp output- volume vs dynamics. Although using the "KAB" calculations -e.g. 56 db setting for .5mv cartridge- will allow my phono to play really loud, it sounded anemic and weak compared to my CD player. Everything was loud but there wasn't the pace and drive that my CD player had. Adjusting to the "TAS" calculations e.g. the 66db setting made the sound much more lively and dynamic, more drive behind the notes, the sounds jumped out of the speakers with speed and power as opposed to sounding loud but flat. Quite a dramatic difference- the difference between "fine" and "awesome".
OK, seems I will have to try the 65 db gain for the DL-103, to see what I'm missing. Are you aware of any tube phono's that have 65 dB of gain?
jolida jd9 ii but I would recommend a SUT and your current tube box- maybe the budgie ten which adds 20db. use the tube box at 46db
what amplifier do you have? 60 db would sound a lot better than the 56db I was using for the ART9 (which wasn't bad, just not great).
Tube Box S has 41/51/61 dB. Tube Box DS has 40/50/60. I own both. None has 46 dB. If I buy the solid state Phono Box DS, that one has 40/45/60/65 settings. So, maybe a Budgie TenSut with Phono Box DS?
With the DL-103 and 46 dB on the Phono Box? The load the cartridge sees with a 1:10 SUT and a 47k Ohm phono input ought to be 470 Ohm.
Yes and if you have below the 500mv it starts to clip without putting out it's rated power. But as mentioned above these things are extremes. Unless you have some seriously inefficient speakers that aspect of it shouldn't be a problem. Basically the big things you get by matching gain, again unless you are talking about low powered tube amps, is a low noise floor and dynamics.
Oh, I completely forgot the loading. Mine is a Zu Denon 103, and the hand-written certificate from Zu Audio it came with states my cart needs 1000 Ohm loading. I'm not sure I can do that with the SUT, can I?
I am using the Denon 4300 (AVR), however, I am not using the built in amp, instead I am using the preamp outputs to run a couple different external amps (experimenting) - monolith 7 and the Behringer A500 (bridged). This is a dual purpose system - HT and 2CH. The Behringer has gain adjustments, the Mono 7 doesn't.
This seems to depend on whether you believe Zu or Denon. Zu says 1000 and Denon says 100. I'd like to try the 1:10 SUT from Parks with my 0.4 mV Benz. Maybe I never will, though. There's nothing from about 0.3 mV and up that my PS Audio GCPH doesn't handle just fine. Continuous gain knob right there on the front.
Zu's website says 100 to 400 Ohms. I loaded my 1st Generation Zu DL-103 at 100 Ohms with good results using a Quicksilver SUT and loading plugs.
Mine is Grade 1. The papers that came with it say impedance 45 Ohm - see your specific pickup. So, under these generic rules, the loading for this Zu Denon would be 450 Ohm, but - here's the little handwritten cert that came specifically with my cart, with a serial number, printed on a piece of graph plotter tape: [/url][/IMG] So, I'm loading this particular cart at 1k Ohm
The 1K load is solely the load at which the cartridge was tested to achieve the test results; it is not indicative of a recommended load. For example, the 103R is tested at 47K (I have owned two and both came with graphs indicating that) but that would certainly not be a recommended load for a typical cartridge with a 14 ohm internal impedance, even lower than the stock 103's 40-45. Don't get me wrong-it may sound fine at 1K ohm. But general rule of thumb is a load of around 100-150 for the R and about 400 for the stock 103 based on internal impedance. Too lazy to check but I think Denon's recommendation is simply >100 ohms for both.
Yup, it says "100 or more", which, I guess, means "trust your ears". OK, the impedance of mine is 45 Ohm, I will try to adjust the loading to about 400 - 450, using the usual 10/1 logic, and see (hear) if there's a notable change. I wonder if I can do it on the fly, as the record is playing?
I interpreted this thread as being "trust your ears with gain settings, try different things and see what you like, don't be obsessed with charts and math and rules of thumb". It seems that wasn't the universal interpretation.
Agree but the core concept for me is that the KAB calculations do not yield enough gain and have not been optimum for every cartridge I have used in the past 4 years or so since learning about it. should be fine . i have used another cart on my same phono preamp that has ,3mv output. the TS calculation calls for 72 db but my preamp only goes up to 66, which is still better than the KAB no. of 61 db. it sounds fantastic and much better than when i had a preamp that maxed out at 61db gain.
Looked at the peak output on five different records, the clips were randomly chosen. Turns out the peak output is quite high. Compared the output with a 1kH tone cut at 10cm/s, one can look at the plots below. One can see that the peak output from these records in some cases will be more than 10dB higher than peak output from the 1kH tone. This will mean that the peak output from the cartridge, compared with nominal spec at 5,6cm/s, these peaks will have a much higher output, about 3-5 times higher, if I calculate this correctly. The clips in the plots are here:Dropbox - Random_needledrops.wav
