Recommended Load Capacitance
Recommended Load Capacitance is the capacitive load a cartridge maker recommends, in picofarads (pF). It describes the load connected to the cartridge, not capacitance inside it.
A recommendation may be a single value or a range. Load resistance, measured in ohms, is a separate specification.
Recommended Load Capacitance — Cartridge
For a cartridge connected directly to a phono input, add the capacitance of the tonearm wiring, connecting cable and phono input. The input setting alone is not the total.
For example, 100 pF from wiring and cable plus a 100 pF input gives 200 pF per channel. Compare this total with the cartridge maker’s recommendation; do not add the left and right channels together.
With moving-magnet cartridges, capacitance interacts with the coils’ inductance—their opposition to changing current—and can alter treble response. Higher or lower is not automatically better: follow the specified loading.
Sources
- OASIS phono stage manual — Manley Laboratories
- Cartridge Loading — Hagerman Technology
Sources
- M97 LT user guide — Shure
- 2M Red specifications — Ortofon