Analog Upgrade Suggestions Welcome

Whoa, there Mstram. Slow down a little. Three posts (well, two anyway) on your own thread before anyone gets a chance? No fair. ;-)

Has the technology evolved over the last 15 years to the point where moving magnets now have the resolution and finesse of a fine moving coil?

In a word, no. Grado's have many fans of course, like any brand, but those who particularly value "resolution and finesse" do not seem to be among them. Grado's are widely praised for a very full-bodied and warm midrange. They are sometimes chided for a lack of HF extension and air, somewhat loose bass and two well known performance issues: a tendency to hum in the presence of unshielded AC motors and a tendency for the suspension to develop a "wobble" if mated to a less than perfectly matched tonearm. Search here or on VA for "Grado hum", "Grado wobble" or "Grado dance". You'll learn more than you ever cared to know. Maybe you'd have those problems. Maybe you wouldn't. I haven't had a Grado myself and couldn't predict.

When choosing a cartridge for an existing system it must suit your phono stage electrically, but it must also suit your tonearm mechanically. Both relationships are vital.

Let's start with the tonearm. Your SME 309 has an effective mass of 11g. This makes it suitable for a medium compliance cartridge. Something around 12-16cu would be best, depending on the weight of the cartridge. Your goal is to choose a cartridge that, when mounted on an SME 309, will yield a system resonance frequency somewhere between 8-12Hz, with 10Hz being "ideal".

A Grado Ref is a high compliance (20cu) cartridge that weighs only 6.5g. Its resonance frequency on a 309 would be dangerously near the recommended floor of 8Hz. This could make it sensitive to warps, footfalls and other floor-borne vibrations.

A Shelter 501MkII is a low compliance (9cu) cartridge that weighs 8g. Its resonance frequency on a 309 would be around 12.6Hz. This could lead to impaired bass response.

I'd look at other cartridges. Neither of these is a particularly good match for your tonearm.

For electrical matching you need to look up the gain (or choices of gain) and input impedance (or choices thereof) of your phono stage. Those two facts will determine the cartridge output levels and types it can handle. Find those two numbers and I'm sure useful and workable recommendations will be plentiful.

It looks like you have enough gain and loading flexibility to handle just about any imaginable cartridge. I'd be slightly concerned about inserting resistors to modify gain. They're in the signal path, so make sure they're good quality.

How is the ease of arm height adjustment on the SME 309? I ask because some cartridges that offer sublime resolution and finess are very sensitive to that. I might not recommend them if changing SRA on a 309 is a pain, or if you would find it so.

I would be leary of used cartridges except from someone you know and trust. I did it once. It could have been worse, but it could have been better too. Crap shoot.

BTW, I'm surprised no one jumped on you for this statement from your original post, so I will:

I didn't want to spend more than $1000 for a cartidge as the majority of my listening is still redbook CD.

There is something seriously wrong with your analog setup if the majority of your listening time is wasted, err, spent listening to RBCD. Get a grip man!

Your TT and arm seem respectable enough, so I point the finger at that 15yo cartridge. I don't know diddle about Sumiko's, but 15 years? Good grief. If you don't care about your ears what about your poor records? :-0

Replace that worn out thang with a good modern MC. Assuming the Classe phono stage is decent (no idea) that $11K RBCD rig can go back to what it's suited for, providing weight to help stabilize your TT stand! ;^)

One more Q: what kind(s) of music?

Hmmm, I'm trying to square this statement,

Setting VTA is a hassle. I prefer to set it up so that things sound good for records of average thickness and forget about tweeking it. I would go nuts adjusting the VTA for every record. I just want to listen to the music.

with this one,

I use the LPs as more of a sonic treat for special occasions. I tend to appreciate it more.

But if it's a special occasion wouldn't it be worth...
Never mind, I'll shut up. :-)

Based on your music mix I would love to recommend a ZYX R100 ($800). I think you'd be truly pleased at the uncolored, natural sounding instruments and voices, the realistic detail that's always there but never intrudes itself onto the music and the superlative tracking and tracing of even the toughest grooves.

Unfortunately, that wonderful groove tracing and all its sonic benefits is largely due to the ZYX's microridge stylus. If you don't set SRA precisely to match the record, the magic won't quite happen. This is true of any cartridge to some degree, but it's truer of microridge and line contact styli than it is of elliptical or conical styli.

OTOH, why not a ZYX? If you're in the "kick back and relax" mood nothing unpleasant will ever come from it. It may sound a bit relaxed and distant, but perhaps that would suit your mood. For those special occasions you can adjust it to perfection and wow yourself and your friends.

Yeah, buy a ZYX. It's an excellent match for your tonearm and it can play to suit either of your listening moods. Go for the low output version. It's more responsive, delicate and detailed and your Classe phono has plenty of gain.

P.S. Yes I have a Shelter 901 as my second cartridge, it's a distant second to be honest. The 901 is livelier for rock than a ZYX, but a ZYX quite outclasses it for jazz, folk, classical or any other music with acoustic instruments and voices. The 901 wouldn't be an ideal match for your arm, as we discussed, but if you want to hear it I'll be posting a home demo offer fairly soon. Keep your eyes on this forum.

Mark,
That does indeed change things. The Grado Ref and other high compliance carts become viable, a Shelter goes out the window altogether. A ZYX would work with the optional headshell weight, but that's only available on higher priced models AFAIK. Now where did I get 11g? Whatever, I'm sure SME's manual is better than my memory. Good thing you looked and sorry for almost steering you wrong. Guess I'm getting too old to do this stuff from memory.

There are fewer high compliance MC's than low-mid compliance ones. Grado, some VdH's, some Ortofons, some Sumikos. The Blackbird mentioned by Lugnut would certainly work well. If his description is appealing I'd certainly trust his ears.

Mark,
One could "successfully" use nearly any cartridge on nearly any tonearm. They'd all play music. The idea is not that a Shelter wouldn't play or play well. It just wouldn't play its best. A more compatible catridge *would* play its best and give you maximum performance for your cartridge dollars.

YMMV of course, but if optimum performance is what you're after then optimum equipment matching is the way to achieve it.

VdH? Ortofon? Sumiko? Those seem like some pretty good choices Raul.

Perhaps that's why Lugnut and I mentioned them THREE DAYS AGO!

I'm not sure which close-minded people you were referring to, but thanks for keeping a watchful eye out just the same. Thank goodness they haven't shown up on this thread. ;-)

Mstram,
If I'd known you were ready to jump in the 901's direction I'd have offered to lend you mine at no cost but shipping. You could have made a decision based on your own ears. I'm sure you'll enjoy the cartridge, which is a pretty good one. Good luck in your analog adventures.

MSiebers,
FWIW, I have heard systems with cart/arm resonances above 12 Hz. IME the bass response of those systems was sub-optimal. There's a reason most people prefer a range of 8-12Hz, with 10Hz being optimal. It works a little better.

A Shelter performs well on your WT arm? That's great, but Mark doesn't have a WT arm. A Shelter also performs well on a modded OL Silver and even better on a mass-matched Schroeder Reference. What does any of this have to do with Mark's SME 309?

Slipknot1,
Strangely enough, Raul has made the same 10Hz recommendation that I did several times on other threads. Clearly he is disagreeing here just to be disagreeable. I interpret this as his cry for help.

Raul apparently believes that tearing someone else down builds him up. His world must be a starkly unfulfilling place. Imagine living life in a zero-sum game, with no way to increase your own worth but by reducing someone else's. What a pathetic and loveless existence. Such a person must either discover a new path or go mad.

PsychicAnimal's or Cello's prescriptions might help him. Finding God might help him. Raul has yet to discover the courage within himself to trust anything beyond himself. I hope someday he will.

Msiebers,
Sorry if I came on strong. Like you, I had no desire to offend. Providing the context for your Shelter 501 experience was valuable of course, as long as Mark doesn't necessarily expect the same on a different arm. IME the character of a cartridge can change substantially depending on the arm it's used on. That's all.

I have been following the discussions of resonant frequency on the vinyl engine and AA by headshell/hybris. He has stated several times that a higher resonant frequency is desirable, and that has matched my own limited experience.

I haven't seen that conversation. I'll look it up, thanks for the reference.

What is the bass frequency that is affected ? If it is the low bass (20-40 Hz), that would explain why many would not hear the impact, since most systems Iincluding my own) do not reproduce this range.

The frequencies affected are indeed in the lower bass, so your supposition seems correct. My speakers are only flat to 33Hz, though they do produce some useful energy below that in the usual rolling off way. Presumably the lower one's system goes the more this will matter.

The experiences that lead me to prefer a resonance frequency around 10-11Hz were based on altering the effective mass of my own arms, a TriPlanar and an OL Silver. On the TP this is especially easy to do, depending on the cartridge, because the arm comes with three different counterweights. (Some other arms like Moerch have a similar facility.) Unless one has a very heavy or very light cartridge, it's normally possible to balance it and apply VTF using either of two weights. Obviously this slightly alters the effective mass and resonance frequencies.

IME with two Shelter 901's and three different ZYX R1000 series carts, a resonance frequency around 10 provides slightly better bass. With the ZYX's it's fairly subtle. With the 901's it was more obvious.

I feel that tracking improves with a higher resonant frequency.

I couldn't detect any tracking ability changes. The ZYX's always tracked and traced superbly when properly set up. The Shelter's didn't do as well regardless of setup. Of course other combinations may well act differently. Yours obviously does.

If very LF energy inputs (warps, footfalls, etc.) are causing tracking problems then tuning the arm/cart resonance a bit higher to avoid them could be an effective compromise solution. (Oy! Everything in vinyl is a big compromise. What a goofy way to reproduce music!)

Msiebers,
I believe that article was more valid at the time it was presented than it is today, due to changes in the analog playback environment.

Only a few turntables that existed in 1977 could match today's better decks for lack of rumble, wow, flutter, etc. Those noise sources were common in many 1970's and older decks (including all of mine!) so isolation from them was critical.

Those noise sources barely exist on today's decent rigs. The problems have changed, for the better of course, so the solutions should change to match them.

Today the most significant vibration sources are footfalls and warps, which mostly fall well below 8Hz, and LF bass information recorded on the record, which can go as low as 16Hz or so on some records. A resonance frequency as high as 18Hz would have a high probability of interacting with music information.

Good job pointing up that article. Reflecting on it shows how much progress analog playback has made in recent decades.

P.S. regarding Raul's concern
The B&W spec for the N803's is -3db @ 35Hz and -6db @ 28Hz. My loose recollection that they go flat to 33 was an overstatement by approximately 4db. Sorry for the inaccuracy.

Obviously they do produce useful, audible information into the bottom half-octave, which is consistent with the audibility of LF bass interference. No doubt speakers which go lower would reveal even more, as you originally stated.