Vinyl Asylum: Re: Low Output Vs. High Output Phono cartridges by rlawry

There are advantages and disadvantages of low output moving coil cartridges. The primary advantage to a low output version is the use of less massive coils connected to the cantilever and stylus, which reduces mass and inertia of the moving parts of the cartridge. This allows the stylus to respond more quickly to changes in the record grooves, increasing resolution. The main disadvantage is the reduction in voltage output, requiring more gain from phono preamps, preamps, and amplifiers, and the possible additional amplification of noise. Recently some cartridge manufacturers have developed higher voltage output versions using larger magnets and keeping the coil mass constant, hopefully getting the best of both worlds. The cartridge output should be matched to the gain of your system. Too low a cartridge output and you can get too low a system volume, dynamic range, and/or noise. Too high an output and you might exceed the headroom of your phono stage, causing overload.