Dear friends,
I have a 310 on a p-mount adapter which sits on a Origin Live arm.
This cartridge is a bit finicky around step-ups, I have a Sowter 9270 which sounds ok, but not more than that, and an Ortofon MC3000 which is not suitable at all.
Do you guys have any suggestions for a good step-up that matches the Technics MC310 ?
Cheers, Kris
That Sowter looks like 1:10 and the Ortofon 1:30 but it seems like your cartridge would do better with a 1:20 SUT.
With a 0.2mV / 30Ω Technics MC310/EPC-310MC into 47k MM:
1:10 reflects ~470Ω and gives ~2mV (borderline).
1:30 reflects ~52Ω and gives ~6mV — but the loading seems extremely heavy for a 30Ω cart.
1:15–1:20, would give ~3–4mV and ~200–120Ω reflected load.
I’m purely looking at the maths based on some assumptions regarding the load impedance and your phono gain.
Plus, I’m taking the formula from elsewhere on the forum and really don’t know enough myself. What is it with the sound of each SUT that made you say what you did?
A quality brand in the 1:15-1:20 range might do well.
Thanks Pan,
First off, I meant to write T3000 rather than MC 3000 which is a cartridge.
On the Sowter the MC310 is a little recessed towards the top. This is my main issue really.
Cheers, Kris
The T3000 looks to be 1:32 so seems unsuitable.
What’s the phone stage gain? If low you might just need a slightly higher SUT ratio, to the Sowter, as mentioned previously.
Or how about a bit of silver?!
You’d get the chance to try 1:10 and 1:20 with a different material.
I suppose it depends whether you’re in love with this cart and definitely want to optimise for it. Could be a fair bit of trial and error.