Audiophilepure

The Piccolo Zero head-amp is designed to increase gain from a low output moving coil cartridge and feed its output signal into a phono stage that is intended to be paired with a cartridge that has an output level in the range of 3 to 5 mV, which is what you have with a typical moving magnet cartridge. This is the type of cartridge the Cornet MM is designed for, so to use a low output moving coil cartridge you need a step up device, whether it be a head amp like the Piccolo, a step up transformer, or a trans-impedance device like the Piccolo Zero. A standard head amp or a step up transformer requires matching between the cartridge’s internal impedance and its resistive load. Without getting into deep math, a trans-impedance head amp is a 0 ohm load circuit that operates a cartridge in current mode and does not rely on external resistive load. This design is best suited for cartridges with lower internal impedance, with single digit impedance levels being more desirable. Internal impedance times the cartridge output voltage equals output gain of the cartridge/head-amp combination. As an example an Ortofon X40 cartridge has an internal resistance of 4 ohms and .4 mV output voltage and is a solid choice over a Denon DL103 which has a 40 ohm internal resistance and .25 mV output voltage. While a trans-impedance head amplifier has a smaller pool of cartridges that are compatible with it, there are benefits beyond negating the process of getting the correct resistive load for the cartridge and phono circuit. One event that is not often discussed is dynamic braking. Dynamic braking stiffens the cartridge assembly at higher frequencies and the result is the diamond maintains improved contact with groove walls and results in less tracking errors.