The Finish Gold now makes room for the Brinkmann EMT ti in the Transrotor TRA 9's headshell. This allows the R-580 to show how well it copes with "loud" moving coil cartridges. Helmut Brinkmann recommends a terminating impedance of 600 ohms and that's where I start. Of course I also grant the EMT two records to warm up before I give it a more critical listen. After all, the bearing rubber has to become a little smoother again. The EMT then starts on - at least on vinyl - a long unheard album: Stevie Ray Vaughan's Couldn't Stand The Weather and of course its track "Tin Pan Alley": That was already one of my favourites more than 30 years ago, at a time when I listened almost exclusively to EMT variants. And now again I enjoy the tremendous power and energy of the song. However, I have never been granted to experience such a large and airy space. The fine dynamics of the guitar playing I don't remember as good as this. Of course, this is largely due to the rest of the chain, but the EMT ti and the R-580 harmonise excellently: The coarse dynamics and the joy of playing of the cartridge benefit from the spatiality, speed and detailing of the phono stage: an ideal pair!
PS: This proves especially true if the cartridge is terminated with 400 instead of 600 ohms.