The correct internal-inductance of Windfeld cart.?

According to the Ortofon specification sheet, the PW has an internal resistance of 4 ohms, and an output of .3mV. If you are trying to work out what kind of step up transformer will work for this cartridge, those numbers are what you need. These are pretty much normal numbers for a relatively low output cartridge.

As for the inductance, I have no idea. Why would you need to know the inductance? I would assume that the PW is like any other MC cartridge, which means an insensitivity to capacitance loading.

I admit I haven't read through all of these posts, so I am not clear as to the controversy here, but, I don't get the concept of "20 time the voltage for free." The cartridge's output is fixed -- it is a certain amount of mv per the particular modulation supplied by the record groove. As a low impedance source, it is delivering this output as, relatively speaking, a high current, low voltage signal. What phono stages do is amplify/convert the signal to a high voltage/low current signal. An input SUT converts the high current/low voltage signal to a low current/high voltage signal -- nothing is "free." A loading resistor of any value across the primary acts as a voltage divider which will dissipate some of the signal as heat (i.e., a loss). Of course, the higher values used means that little is lost. The voltage gain (at the expense of current) is determined by the turn ratio of the SUT, I don't see how it has anything to do with loading.

My phono stage has a loading resistor across the primary. The recommendation by the distributor of the phonostage is to experiment with the value of this resistor to optimally load the chosen cartridge. The distributor does not recommend changing the value of the resistor on the secondary side. This makes sense to me. That resistor provides the optimal loading of the SUT itself (these things will have their own electrical resonance properties).

Axel,

I originally misinterpreted what you were saying about "free" voltage multiplication.

What is interesting about your experience with primary loading of the PW cartridge is that your ideal loading (the reflected load seen by the cartridge) is radically different when using that SUT than the recommended loading when using only an active phonostage or secondary loading.

I was wondering if you have any speculation as to why this is so. I know that some experts maintain that there is a specific "critical" load that effectively dampens the high frequency peak without excessively rolling off the high frequencies. I was wondering why it is not the same load (as presented to the cartridge) regardless of the type of downstream amplifying device.

I am asking this because my phonostage (Viva Fono) utilizes a SUT as the first stage voltage gain device (feeding a tube active stage). I don't even know the gain of the device, but, it is loaded at the primary with a 460 ohm resistor. This resistor is soldered across the back of the RCA input jacks. Because of the difficulty in accessing and changing the resistor value (tight space, a lot of nearby wires), I've limited my experiments to connecting and disconnecting one leg of the resistor. I am now wondering if I should try a MUCH lower value resistor.