On 8/1/2025 6:21 PM, Jay Hennigan via Jukebox-list wrote:
On 8/1/25 14:47, Tony Miklos via Jukebox-list wrote:
Replying to myself here. I made two new cartridges fit into the tone arm and wired them in series. Works and sounds great! That's a new one to me, two ceramic cartridges in series.
A ceramic cartridge is basically a deliberately microphonic ceramic capacitor. Compared with the high impedance input of ceramic amplifier stages, the unused series cartridge is a relatively low impedance at audio frequencies. If it were in parallel it would load the circuit and the piezoelectric properties would try to move the stylus of the unused cartridge in sync with the music on the active cartridge, resulting in wasted energy and lower gain.
Similarly, if you have a monaural phonograph that originally used a crystal cartridge like the little RCA 45-RPM 45-EY-2 changers and the like, it's common to use a stereo ceramic cartridge as a replacement. Wiring the two channels in series results in higher output voltage similar to that of the original crystal cartridge.
Thanks Jay. I'll remember the two in series but who knows if I'll run across that again.