Interested to know if the Jap IO are a bit more flexible with their loading than the UK ones?
I’m not really interested in the UK ones as I couldn’t get the high ratio SUT quiet into my system, just wondering if the 0.05-0.15mV difference is a real and you would get away with say a 1:30 SUT?
I have an AN UK Io gold with a Kondo SF-Z step-up. Into a Grandinote Celio, it’s silent, as it was into the AN UK M5 phono.
Whilst the IO will play music, it will not be close to it’s potential with anything other than a correctly matched SUT.
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This. The best I have heard is the AN UK S9. The Kondo SF-Z is nearly as good at 1/3 the price.
It is a fair question.
If the output of a Kondo Io is 3x that of an ANUK Io then presumably the SUT could be 1/3 of the ratio. of one you use for an ANUK Io.
However you cannot underestimate the dark arts that come with SUTs and I don’t understand them.
@coco or @murrayjohnson would be better able to answer this question.
Meanwhile you can salivate over the soon to be released Kondo Io - XP
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You could get away with 1:20 on the 0.15 mV cart but you’d have to stick a resistor across the output to drop the input impedance for the cart to see the 3-30 Ohms it needs.
I think system gain (as a product of phono/Pre/Power) and sensitivity of loudspeakers has a lot to do with what you can/can’t hear…(in terms of any residual valve noise/hum)…
Hang on, so I have an old Jap IO and this will be 0.15 mV?
This should make things more affordable if so.
Not necesarily
I knew it! Ffs
I’ll get all this shit sorted one day.
I think the old silver Io-J was 0.15 mV but the newer Io-M is 0.12 mV
I think It is just the ANUK carts that are 0.05 mV
(although fuck knows it’s all just a mixture of internet legend and bollocks)
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@murrayjohnson will know, but I think the original Audio Note Japan (Kondo) Ios were very low output.
When Kondo stopped making them ANUK started manufacture but they were basically copies of the ANJ Io.
Guy wrote a fantastic post years ago on the WAM about the Io cartridge, it’s history and manufacture which has disappeared down some internet black hole or another as I just had a go searching for it and failed miserably
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This maybe?
Essentially made me buy one (though not a gold, just a messed up/scratched old looking thing).
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That’s the one! 
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