Thorsten Loesch
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I have an MM cartridge but setting it to Gain +2 (MC High) everything seems to sound better (and louder). Does this mean that because I am using an MM cartridge I should only use the Gain +1 (MM)?
Well, MC-Hi could have been called MM2. Both settings are fine for MM Pickups.
As MM pickup's are usually quite "hot" (often > 5mV @ 3.54cm/s), the lowest gain was assigned to MM.
The High Output MC's are commonly less "hot" (2.5mV @ 3.54cm/s), so the higher gain was labelled MC-Hi.
So using 1 & 2 is fine. There are also some MI cartridges from Grado that can use and even need MC-Low as setting.
Using higher gain cut's available headroom but improves SNR, conversely lower gain increases headroom but compromises SNR.
Every cartridge has an optimum setting.
For LP +14dB re 3.54cm/S is officially the maximum. Conveniently 14dB is equal to 5 X.
Let's allow 10 X (20dB) as headroom.
The Zen Phono can output 10V RMS.
So the optimum gain for a cartridge is one that places the output voltage at the cartridge's nominal rated output between 0.5V & 2V. More than 2V cut's headroom, less than 0.5V compromises SNR.
With (respectively) 72/60/48/36dB gain the corresponding "mV" rating for cartridges are:
72dB - 0.125mV....0.5mV
60dB - 0.5mV...2mV
48dB - 2mV...8mV
36dB - > 8mV
Thor