At what price point do I run into diminishing returns on an MC Cartridge?

Daveyf,

The styluses have different configuration. Conical stylus has one face. The sophisticated Shibata or Micro Ridge like have up to 32 faces. To mount and align such on a cantilever takes laser beam technology to get the angles right. When using, any mis- guidance or mis-aligning damages the original shape quite fast and easy.  All styluses diamonds are lab created and polished these days. Also, some cheap styluses were made of ruby/sapphire like composite or different corundum composites. Sometimes they were good for just 100-200 hours.

Let me put manufacturer's thoughts into this. The subject is very subjective as I can pun. Most of the responses are based on person's experience , but the experience usually run into just few items. Being in the cartridge re-sell and cartridge manufacturing business for 20 years and having hundreds and hundreds of clients every year I could say that the average audiophile runs through 3-10 cartridge over the period of serious listening. I could count on my fingers people who owned more than 10 quality cartridges for the entire life. People telling truth from their heart based on 3-10 cartridges experience. Sadly the truth is mis-leading.

Most of analog gurus here ignore few important issues with phono cartridges.

1. stylus lifespan of high quality diamond is 1000-1200 hours. Low quality 200-300 hours. The distortion starts around 50- 60% of a lifespan.

2. Dampher life is 6 month to 3 years. Distortion based on this could start from the hour one all the way to the stone age of dampfer.

3. Oxidation of coils changes the impedance and connectivity all the time and it not improving the sound over time.

Therefore speaking and comparing vintage cartridges performance is close to believing in voodoo miracles. The ugly truth behind purchasing phono cartridge is the money you invested in this are gone. It hurts, but you have to admit it.

What do you have in return- the joy of high quality sound. The limit is your pocket and your ego.

Manufacturer's hardware expenses to produce entry level and top of the line cartridge are never more than 10%. Quality control expenses most of the time is the same. Why the prices of the same brand has up to 1000% difference? The answer is- research time and tune work done to make sound improvement. When we launched new Aidas Rainbow cartridges line we gone through 200+ damping composites just to get the desired quality, rigidity and sound pattern. It took us close to 18 month of countless tests and rejections. The generator, the coils material, and many-many other factors and combinations contribute to the better than before sound. We are closely examine all new models on the market to see what's good and what's not. This concerns only real deal High End cartridge manufacturers. There are 2-3 on the market that I can name. All other produce average quality cartridges that change model names and prices on a regular basis.

Finally let's get close to the discussion subject.

1. Before going into purchasing a new cartridge ask yourself why did you buy the one you have now? What was the trigger?

2. Comparing new cartridge sound at any price to your old cartridge is not relevant most of the time, because you hear different sound that was originally.

3. If it was great improvement in the past, may be it would be the same with the old or similar model now without investing more $$.

4. All the review in magazines is just advertising, nothing more. They are leading you to the brand only. To test the brand is your job. Unfortunately there is no other way to do this, but to hear it with your own ears. Spending $30 twice a year to visit shows may save you few thousand. Also driving 200 miles to a far away show room could save you the same $$.

5. If your gear set up is highly tuned and properly managed the difference will show right away.

My rule of lost signal is dominant no matter what. If you loose quality signal because you connect $10K cartridge with .99c shell lead- you won't get it even you have $100K further in line.

6. Any brand has it's own sound pattern. That's the way design team wants to hear it. It is their taste, not yours. It will go down the line from base model to top model. If something bothers you in base model- most likely it will be persistent further on.

7. If sound pattern of a new entry level cartridge made real difference - most likely top model will have the same effect with more tunable mid- upper tones.

8. The devil is in the details. Test the cartridge with the music you will listen to. If you are up for piano or violin be sure that

your eardrums won't be damaged with some aggressively sounding but great on the other type of music cartridges.

Every 2 years I publish my personal cartridge grading for public use. I will do this again in few days. You are more than welcome to visit these posts along with my web sites

aidasaudio.com

to

Daveyf,

 We test damphers in laboratory here in USA, In Europe and home. There are many instruments to do testing. Some are simple and we can do this at home. Some are very sophisticated- we do lab tests.

All lab created diamonds are different quality. Different polishing quality too. The worst are G from Europe, The best are A from Japan. There are some in between.