turntable cartridge output mV?

danger boy

ok.. i know nothing about electronics.. so I think mV stands for millivolts? my ? is, is there a big difference in cartridges if one is rated at 4mV and another may be 4.5mV or even 5mV?

I think my Audio Technica 440MLa (4.0 mV) is to low of voltage and I have to crank it up to get decent sound. and yes I am using a phono input.. but if I bumped it up to a 5mV output cart, would it make any difference? My Pioneer PL-530 table seems to pick up a lot of table noise. My friend has the same cart on his POS table and it's a lot more quite than mine is.

what is a high output cartridge? is it better, worse, the same as a low output cartridge?

What about a moving coil (MC) cartridge? lower output than moving magnet (MM)?

hearingimpared

It's all a matter of preference. I love my Airy 3 which is an MC cart with .24mv output.

The lower output of the cartridge the higher the gain needed in the preamp to play the signal a reasonable levels without raising the volume so high you end up getting a hiss.

Typically MM cart are higher output than MC and they are typically can track at lower VTF.

Just to give you an idea of my feelings of preference, MM carts are warm and lush sounding while MC cart are very detailed react faster to the grooves.

billbillw

danger boy wrote: »

ok.. i know nothing about electronics.. so I think mV stands for millivolts? my ? is, is there a big difference in cartridges if one is rated at 4mV and another may be 4.5mV or even 5mV?

I think my Audio Technica 440MLa (4.0 mV) is to low of voltage and I have to crank it up to get decent sound. and yes I am using a phono input.. but if I bumped it up to a 5mV output cart, would it make any difference? My Pioneer PL-530 table seems to pick up a lot of table noise. My friend has the same cart on his POS table and it's a lot more quite than mine is.

what is a high output cartridge? is it better, worse, the same as a low output cartridge?

What about a moving coil (MC) cartridge? lower output than moving magnet (MM)?

The output from various Moving Magnet cartridges is all basically the same. You won't hear a difference between 4.0mv and 5.0mv. It will just have a slight affect how much you have to turn up the volume to hear the same level. Shouldn't make any difference in how much noise, etc. When you say you are getting table noise, are you talking about rumble, hum, or hiss? If you have rumble, you might need to check your bearing. If its hum, check your wires for continuity and make sure the connections are tight on the cartridge. De-oxit is recommended. If its hiss, that's usually from your phono stage, or from the vinyl itself. Double check your alignment, etc to be sure.

Its normal to need the volume higher with a turntable. CD players have really high outputs and they've gotten higher through the years. Preamps are designed with a large volume range for a reason, not all sources have the same output. As long as you are in the lower 80% of the volume range, I wouldn't worry about that.

Between different cartridges, any differences you hear are usually due to the stylus, windings, cantilever, etc, being different. The output is not important until you start talking about Moving Coils.

IN the MC world, there are low output (typically 0.2-0.4mv), medium output (typically 0.8-1.2mv), and hight output (typically 2.0-2.5mv)

This is important because you need to have a cartridge that matches what your phono section can handle.