Phono Cart Impedance Question


I have a little bit of hiss through my 6 ohm, 0.28mV cart but only at a volume pushing the upper end of my listening volume...and it's only audible before I drop the needle, and even then not from the listening position.  I realize I therefore likely have a "non problem"!  

But I still have a generic question on to the sensitivity of producing hiss as it relates to cartridge impedance alone.  If one kept all other cart specs identical (including output of course) would you expect hiss to go up or down at the same volume and system gain if I used an 8 ohm or 12 ohm cart instead?  It seems like the hiss would likely go up just like moving to a higher impedance speaker under the same gain setup but perhaps I'm looking at this incorrectly? I realize moving to a slightly output cart could very well reduce the hiss.

Thoughts?   Sorry if this is a ridiculously obvious question and answer.

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Showing 2 responses by hagtech

The hiss from your cart is small compared to phonostage.  One easy way to tell is to listen to hiss with and without cart - I guarantee one will be much greater... 
Also, loading resistor is not important, as it gets shunted by cart during normal operation.  A 47k load is just as quiet as a 100 ohm load once a 10 ohm cart is attached...