Need a sut for Hana ml


I hava a Cary ph301 phono stage Mc has 60dB at 100 Ohms  it’s to much gain for cartridge,  I tried 1:10  into mm input  , gain much better but it produced 470 Ohms sounds more like my Hana sl,  the Hana  ML needs >100 Ohms ,what ratio sut should I use ,any advise would be appreciated ,thank you ,and happy holidays.
fedie

Showing 6 responses by lewm

Mulveling, Although it's a fine distinction, his phono stage should add 62db of gain, not 60db, with a 1:10 SUT into the  (42db) MM section OR direct into the (62db) MC section, either way. The resulting output would be fed to a linestage before going on to the amplifier and speakers.  So, a lot can depend upon the gain of the linestage, if any, the input sensitivity of the amplifier, and the efficiency of the speakers.  We know nothing about the latter 3 factors.

The OP wrote on 01/02: "It sounds much different at 100 ohms tone wise better , but noisy to much gain, so I think maybe 150 to 200 ohms will do. The Hana sl sounds good at 470 ohms the Hana ml sounds to stringent "
Of course, noise and too much gain ought to sound different, so I am not sure about the problem, but either way, "too much gain" doesn't make me think he needs a SUT wtih a higher turns ratio.  And I don't know why one would conclude that increasing the value of the phono load resistor (as per the quote) would help either problem.  Since his Cary evidently provides a 68K load at the MM inputs, the actual R seen by the cartridge through a 1:10 SUT should be 680 ohms, not 470 ohms.  Anyone could be forgiven for thinking the load would be 470 ohms, since the MM standard is for 47K ohms.
I think at this point we need to hear from the OP.
in my opinion, the Hana ML with its 0.4mV output and 7-ohm internal resistance is a typical LOMC. A solution that works for it would work for a wide variety of other LOMCs that produce between 0.25 and 0.5 mV output. But the solution has to fit also the Cary ph301 and the downstream components in his particular system.
Bob and Dover, but didn’t the OP say in his original post (or OP) that he senses less gain via the 1:10 SUT into his MM input (which provides 42db gain per the owners manual on line) than he gets by using the MC inputs of the same preamplifier, which provides 62db gain, again according to on-line information? Further, he felt that the latter hook-up provides too much gain, which is odd because according to my calculations his 1:10 SUT into 42db MM section gives the same total gain as his MC stage alone (62db in both cases). If he goes to a 1:20 SUT into his MM stage, he will have 68db total phono gain, and he will be feeding 1V into his linestage section, albeit there will be a benefit if he wants to get closer to a 100-ohm load on the cartridge. I guess only the OP can sort this out.
Incidentally, the MM stage in the Cary PH301 is evidently not "standard" in that it provides 42db gain into a 68K load. (See above and above that.)  Furthermore, there are MM phono stages that provide anywhere from 39db gain (Ypsilon) up to 45db and even 50db gain. So I don't know how you can standardize on the idea that the Hana ML per se requires a 1:20 SUT.
Elliott, With all due respect, I sometimes don’t know what you are trying to say. I think you make the SUT business much more complex than it needs to be, but that’s just me. My understanding is or was that the OP found he did not like the SQ he got from his cartridge when using a 1:10 SUT, although the gain factor was apparently OK. Whereas, he felt he had too much gain when he hooked up the same cartridge to the MC inputs of his phono stage, which provides a gain of 60db into 100 ohms, BUT he did prefer the SQ in the latter hook-up. I certainly could be wrong, but the question seems to be how to achieve a 100-ohm load with a SUT, in the belief that the "problem" is the impedance seen by the cartridge, 470 ohms with a 1:10 SUT vs 100 ohms with the MC gain stage providing 60db. Yes, he did ask "what ratio SUT should I use". Without changing some other parameters, there is no simple answer to that question that will give the proper amount of gain into 100 ohms. Going down in step-up ratio, e.g., to 1:5, will result in a higher net impedance (>470 ohms, or less of a load on the cartridge). Going up in step-up ratio would put him back in the situation of having too much gain, although we don’t know for sure what is the gain of the MM section which factors into the net gain after adding any SUT.

OK, I broke down and did some research on the Cary PH301. Apparently the MM stage presents a 68K ohm resistance, with 42db gain. First of all, this means the cartridge "sees" 680 ohms (68,000/100) across a 1:10 SUT, not 470 ohms. (We are dividing the resistance at the input to the phono stage by the square of the turns ratio of the SUT to calculate the net load seen by the cartridge.) The MC stage of the PH301 gives 62db gain according to the owners manual on-line, not 60db. Interestingly, after the SUT provides a voltage gain of 10X, which is 20db, the net gain with a 1:10 SUT into the MM section is 62db (42db + 20db), exactly the same as the gain achieved with direct connection into the MC section. So I have to back track on something I wrote above and also ask the OP, is the gain really detectably different via your SUT into MM vs direct into MC? Also, maybe the SQ difference is indeed related only to the difference in impedances seen by the cartridge. Anyway, if the OP prefers the SUT connection for its SQ, he could change the value of the MM load resistance, either by paralleling a second resistor of the value needed to reduce the net resistance to 10K ohms, or by simply removing the 68K resistor and replacing it with 10K. (10K on the phono side will give the cartridge 100 ohms across the SUT, 10,000/100.) After that, the MM and MC inputs will be exactly the same as regards both gain and cartridge loading. Case closed.
What Dover said . Plus, I gather you are judging the sound of the ML when you play it through the MC section of your preamp with a 100 ohm load compared to the sound going through a step up transformer into the moving magnet section of the very same preamp. In doing so, you are comparing apples and oranges. There are more differences between the two set ups than just the difference in impedance seen by the cartridge in the two set-ups. 
You lost me somewhere. You say the factory recommends a load of greater than 100 ohms. You also say correctly that your 1 to 10 SUT gives you a net impedance of 470 ohms. In other words, the cartridge sees 470 ohms when it looks toward the phono stage. According to the factory information you quoted, this is perfectly OK. 470 is greater than 100. What’s the problem?