Analogue Synergy....Which is the best Cartridge?

The round and eliptical diamond tips on them Denons are a cost cutting measure to sell at particular price points. The customer records' life span is shortened because of this (and in no short measure with a round). I mean, you even have an 'audio boutique' owner recommending such a stylus in this very thread!

When I was in high school my Shure V15 III cartridge had a hyper-elliptical tip. As I got more informed I went on to better ( both sonically and vinyl wear retardant) stylus profiles, like Shibata, Stereohedron and Fritz Geiger. You just got to be more exact at installing it. I recently found a box with my beloved Audio Technica AT-15S and it's going to get a NOS Super Shibata tip. My modded Stanton Groovemaster's next tip will be a Super Stereohedron (similar to the SS ). My only moving coil is an Ortofon X5 and it has a Fritz Geiger tip, which mimics the shape of a mastering cutterhead. Almost thirty years after my first Technics turntable those very first records still sound clean & crisp.

Your tonearm's mass tends toward the low side--don't know the effective weight but the Shure's will definitely work, so will the Audio Technica. I don't know if the Stanton 681EEE will work, being a medium compliance cartridge. This would be my first entry level choice to get the TT working and start *playing* records. I suggest you talk to Kevin of KAB electroacoustics. He's a very knowledgable, honest dealer who will not mislead you into buying something like the Denons. Although he sells low output movig coils he'll also tell you not to throw away your moving magnet cartridges. There's a reason for that...

http://www.kabusa.com

Almost thirty years later I have another Technics TT, but this one's on steroids--a KAB modded Technics 1200 that will give any $5K TT a run for its money. I did mention--records are meant to be *played*.

Don't be conned into believing you need to change your TT in a hurry. I know of this guy who was a repair tech at a Linn dealer while studying electrical engineering. He still has his Linn Basik ( with some 'modifications' ) and a modified Sony receiver plus some B&W mini monitors in an acoustically engineered room. Word is the local high end dealers can't believe the sound!!! You grab a beefy, surplus DC power supply from eBay and install it outboard in that Linn unit and call me in the morning, dude. Don't believe me? This is what Van Alstine recently posted in his AudioCircle forum:

Just because I am allowing this thread to run on here does not imply that I sanction any of these goofy grossly overpriced turntable designs. I don't.

Me - I am running a 25 year old HK T30 belt drive turntable and arm with the main bearing running in Moble One synthetic oil, the arm bearings in 1000 centistroke liquid silicon, a Tri-Pad record mad, and with my custom made external 12V DC power supply to eliminate all AC hum fields from the unit and provide excellent speed stability. It is quiet, stable, and works great with a Longhorn Grado. I use it for phono preamp design, and if you have heard one of my current phono preamp sections, you would not throw rocks at the turntable. The whole setup cost about $150 years ago.

Frank Van Alstine

There's one guy here (Sedond) who's got an Oracle/Origin Live RB250 with a surplus Hewlett Packard lab grade power supply (about $1K new). I've heard the deck. Also in this forum, Alex Yakovlev is an EE and has a Technics 1200 rigged with an outboard industrial grade power supply. Like in school, connect the dots and use the crayons on your coloring book...

With psychic power and primal intensity,

Why do people keep recommending a cartridge with a *round* diamond tip? Next to a ceramic cartridge it will cause the heaviest record wear!

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Two more recommending a round diamond tip! Shame shame...

This one's for Doug Deacon: Them low output moving coils owe quite a lot of their performance to the MASSIVE bodies that absorb resonances. A Vinyl Asylum inmate from Belgium has just received one of my non-resonant, Caribbean Moca wood blocks. The man makes his own low output moving coil cartridge bodies and will report back after Christmas. The moderator of the vinyl circle in AudioCricle was also sent a complimentary block to make DIY versions of the audiophile-priced 'isolator' and hand them free of charge to the guys. Too bad you passed on my offer.

Stay tuned...

Moving from your Basik to a Scout is a lateral move. That's why I wrote about Mr. Linn technician, Van Alstine & others who've installed outboard power supplies.

I can describe the sound as being smooth, but it lacks detail in the treble and the bass is a bit round and overly soft. If I were to compare the sound to my Ayre C-5xe Universal player, my digital source would definitely be the winner.

Lack of detail in the treble is due to the cartridge, the softness in the bass mostly due to stylus drag effects. It does not really matter you have a very good transport/player--all CDs/SACDs have *perfect* pitch and your ears will notice that even if you listen to a cheap player bought at a department store. CD bass is deep and tight; to rival this a TT would need excellent speed/rotational stability and you will not get that with a Scout either. Far from it.

The KAB website has a LOT of information on vinyl playback. Though mostly geared to 78 RPM record collectors it is nonetheless up to date. Remember, a fool and his money are soon parted.

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Pressure equals force over surface area. I did not make that up, Audiofeil. It's simple physics. I just referred to record & stylus wear, not cartridge design & quality control parameters. DJ cartridges have spherical tips, too and DJ pressings will last a rather long time of use and abuse. There are reasons for that.

Your records should sound this good but you'll never know given your current arrangement.

You don't know my "current arrangement" and you're no psychic. No, I'm not into the audio snob market like you do (tell this guy you're an outrageously expensive audio *boutique* dealer, please) but I have $30,000 sound & spent way less than a third of that. The power delivery/noise control part of the rig has a list value of $7K alone. That's the kind of juice I feed my components.

I know a joker when I see him--like the Cartridge Man (you sell his products, don't you?). Hell, it really impresses the *unaware* with this 'critical' tracking force of 1.58g +/- 0.05g. What you and him don't say is how someone will calibrate a weight scale to that precision in a home environment. I mean, calibration is a VERY periodic activity and readings in the 0.01g range must be done with no air movement, like any other analytical scale. Would you also want to bang around such a delicate instrument via UPS for each calibration? Get real.

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Thanks, Tony. Very good artricle--especially explaining saliva is used as a cleaning solvent!!!

This is from the link you provided:

Various refinements on the elliptical stylus principle have been developed, and are well explained and illustrated in this link to the Needle Express website FAQ page. The objective of all the design types is to increase the area of contact between the stylus and the wall of the groove in a vertical direction.

The high cost of these styli is a consequence of the careful grinding and polishing required to achieve the required profile, and the very exacting task of mounting the stylus in the cantilever so that the narrow axis of the ellipse is perpendicular to the line if the groove. This cost is offset somewhat by the reduced rate of wear on both stylus and records.

Thorsten, the European audio reviewer, states that he has a TT with two tonearms: one of them has a cartridge with a radial stylus because a lot of records were mastered with Scully lathes that electronically modified the musical signal to cancel the *distortions* caused by playing a record with a spherical stylus. If such is the case, then playing those recordings with a spherical stylus is the way to go and one more reason to prefer digital. That's why I have a belt drive transport reengineered by Dan Wright--to counteract the hassles of vinyl.

Danny Boy's my home boy, Audiofeil. Helped personally guiding me (along with Dusty Vawter, Kevin Barrett and Robert Ridge Street) and performing surgery on speakers and electronic x-over so that I would have the sound I now have.

Perhaps I'm wasting my money having Kevin @ KAB solder a Super Stereohedron stylus on this NOS Stanton Trackmaster I cartridge I got in eBay for $54.95. It already came with a radial stylus...

I'm in no hunt, Tony, but I'm against making people feel that a lot of money (or 'critical' conditions) are necessary in order to achieve sonic bliss--and if you don't you're a loser. That's why I used the outboard power supply examples. If Calgaryman does that he's going to have real trouble finding another belt drive that's worth the big money leap. I mean, look at Van Alstine-his gear is great sounding, well made, reliable and very seldom seen on the used market. My TT is better than his but he does make a real valid point: his TT is good enough.

Are you interested in trying one of them non resonant, Moca wood cartridge isolators that are soon to be passed around? I had a Moca board made for Sean's rack (amigo deal for my cable chef >>> free) and his comment was that Moca is about as perfect of a material as it can be. No Voodoo here--just good ol' Mother Nature at work. Stay tuned to AudioCircle.

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Tony, I heard the FET/Valve @ the Chicago Audio Society a few years ago. Sean was there. I really liked its sonic presentation, clarity, dynamics & musicality. I recommended it to my brother in law. I still prefer my Marantz Ma-5 Esotec class A monoblocks, though.

As for the Denon 103-R, I would not recommend it (even if it was retipped every 500 hours). It's not cheap to properly do low output MC amplification and in most cases unnecesary and a bad compromise in the *punch* department. I get the midrange of a $1.5K moving coil and the punch & great trackability of a moving magnet with my modded DJ cartridge! The $54.95 Trackmaster I project is designed to take HF response where it should be. My NOS unit has half the coil windings of modern DJ cartridges (375 Ohm) and more extended HF response. Even with my power delivery/noise control rig I would have to really think it over before making the low output MC leap. Another issue is that the Denon was designed for the massive tonearms of the late 50's/early 1960's. New high mass tonearms tend to be very expensive nowadays, unless one gets an old Lenco or Garrard (EMT, too but not inexpensive).

There' been an unreasonable craze about starting vinyl rigs with low output moving coils. A lot of manufacturers have yielded to this pressure and made their units selectable for low output MCs when in fact they're not really designed for handling them. I still hold the massive cartridge bodies play a big part in the sound. That's one reason why I'm doing the Moca wood cartridge isolator experiment. You signing up?

A Linn Basik with a beefy external surplus power supply and a nice MM like the Stanton 681EEE would be outstanding. Installing a tonearm fluid damper and an Ortofon X5 high output MC would be a wake up call! If you search in the Vinyl Asylum you'll see that the X5 has been preferred by serious audiophiles over many other cartridges (after extended listening sessions). The AudioCircle moderator came to the same conclusion. The X5 is crystalline and airy without artificially bloating the soundstage. I got mine for $125 including shipping from Juki the Hong Kong pirate. Got to get the goodies at discount prices!!!

This is for the Audiofeil: VenHaus hand picks his Beta testers. Yours truly is one of them.

With psychic power and primal intensity,