On Fri, 2006-12-15 at 16:05 -0600, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote: > George Arseneault wrote: > > At the risk of sounding dumb: > > > > How old is the phono-player? > > > > The reason I'm asking is because some of the older > > players have a different style of pre-amplifier and > > require a special input. (long time since I dealt with > > this... I think it was called a "ceramic input") > > Without the right input on your amplifier it would > > sound very faint or possibly not be audible at all. > > > I thought the ceramic input actually gave a higher level input the > the magnetic ones. Speaking as a former member of the RIAA (boo! hiss!), yes, ceramic cartridges did have a higher output level than the magnetic ones. They weren't as responsive, however, required a MUCH heavier tracking force and have a radically different frequency response curve (ceramic cartridges handle midrange frequencies well but kinda suck at low- and high-frequencies). > In any case, the phono pre-amp also has to > compensate for the response curve of the magnetic cartridge. This is > why amps (used to?) have a phono input besides the aux unput - the > levels and response curve is different between a phone-player and a > tape deck. "aux" inputs generally require both a higher level signal and do not have frequency compensation built in (they expect a "flat" or "linear" response). "Phono" inputs expect a low level signal with an "RIAA" compensation curve (only found with magnetic cartridges). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer rstevens@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx - - VitalStream, Inc. http://www.vitalstream.com - - - - "More hay, Trigger?" "No thanks, Roy, I'm stuffed!" - ----------------------------------------------------------------------
