"Don Pearce"
Woody wrote:

Shure cartridges were designed to work into a load of 47K resistance
(like all others) in parallel with something around 360pF capacitance.
The pickup arm cables and the interconnect to the amp would account for
about 120-150pF, which leaves the cartridge underloaded and thus rather
peaky and bright.


The way the impedances work out, you get more peakiness as the load goes
up, not down.


** Shure V15IIIs definitely sound brighter with less loading capacitance -
and or an increase in the load resistance above 47 kohms.


Adding an extra 200pF to the basic cartridge and wires will increase the
level at 10kHz by about 2.5dB.


** Don just plucked that figure out of his bum.

The real number is about 0.5dB at 8 to 10 kHz.

So barely audible.

What an extra 200pF * DOES * do is drop the response at 14 - 17 kHz by 3
or 4 dB - and THAT is what a person with good hearing notices as "
duller ".


This is all about the way the capacitance resonates with the inductance of
the cartridge.


** For anyone who cares to simulate the situation, a V15III has the
following :

L = 550 mH.

R = 1370 ohms

Fo = 42kHz ( equates to about 25 pF internal C )



...... Phil