Cartridges: Complete Scam?

@madavid0 

Multiple people told me they perffered thier old vintage cartridges over modern laser-cut boron-necked diamonds.

In the 70's Technics used laser technology to make a tiny hole in the hollow pipe boron cantilever to mount their nude diamond of untla low mass. This is an old technology, but hollow pipe boron cantilevers are not available anymore for the today's manufacturers. In the 70s this technology was utilized in Moving Magnet design! Today it is not available even for the multi-thousand Moving Coil cartridges.  

You may not understand what you're talking about, but in some point the vintage cartridges are indeed better and more affordable for "normal people". But it doesn't mean that very expensive modern MC are bad, sometimes the price is just 10 times as much if you are willing to buy good ones. So the question is $800 or $8000 ? For me it is not the question anymore, i would rather buy 10 vintage cartridges for $8000 than just one new MC for the same price. But in general those rare $800 MM from the 80s are very close or sometimes better than new $8000 MC in my opinion. The question is which one and that's why tryin' 10 different carts is better than hoping for full satisfaction with 1 overpriced MC.  

@cd318

The biggest step up is from conical to spherical stylus.

Well, i’m not sure about it :)
Conical = Spherical, it's just two names of the same thing. 

It's getting snowing in here. 
The question reminds me the way of thinking of some new russians who're making their decision by the price. The higher the price for each component in high-end audio the better the quality (in their opinion). The only problem is that those guys never tried to find a decent components for reasonable price, they do not have time for it (maybe) and they can afford whatever price which is good for the dealers. If the higher price in audio makes someone happier than it's not always about quality. This is marketing first, it's like business class tickets. True audiophiles normally upgrade their system step by step and it takes time to compare one thing to another (it's all about experience). If you don't know what you're buying and why the price is very high then it's just stupid, maybe Raul is right. 

@luizfcoimbra

I will completely disregard cart/tonearm/phono synergy and compatibility issues and give you the most honest answer that I can, having myself bought and/or experienced a variety of cartridges ranging from U$200,00 to U$10,000: YES, IT MAKES A LOT OF DIFFERENCE and the upgrades are not subtle, but rather like "I CANNOT live without this improvement". I wanted to believe that there’s no difference between a thousand dollars cartridge and a four thousand dollars cartridge

I do not agree with this rule at all. Tried a few respected (brand new) $3000-5000 MC cartridges on high value various tonearms and returned to the rare vintage MM cartridges with ease. First any MM cartridge is always much cheaper than MC, but the quality and sound is not "cheaper". This is not universal rule, but carefully selected top vintage MM cartridges ara amazing and still 5-10 times cheaper. Apart from the vintage cartridges the only vintage things in my analog rig are the nos tubes, direct-drive turntables and toneamrs. I will never spend $3000 on any cartridge again and it does not make big difference to me like it makes to you. However, the cartridge is the most important component in my opinion and it’s worth to try many of them to find the one which gives us tonal satisfaction, but it is not about the price as you described it (it's about the search). $10000 for a cartridge is a nonsense, let’s face it (and don’t tell your wife). Anyone is able to build the decent sound system without spending $10000 on a cartridge. Don’t forget the used market offers, $1500 for MC and under $700 for great and very rare  MM and that’s amazing deals for superb cartridges.

@madavid0

Where do you find rare cartridges that compete with the finest modern cartridges?

It’s all abouit digging, same with rare records, can be different sources in different countries. One of my facebook friend discovered NOS (New Old Stock) stash of very rare JVC Victor cartridges along with Audio-Technica cartridges in Las Palmas. Those units were brand new, never used, forgotten stock in the old record shop. In the same shop he has bought Kenwood L-07D an extremely rare direct drive turntable. The guy came there for the vintage records, not for equimpent or not even for the cartridges. The price for a stash of those rare carts was nothing compared to the market value today (he has bought everything). It was about 3-5 years ago. You never know where you can find stuff like that for cheap, but if you can’t do that yourself, some honest audiophiles selling it for reasonable prices, but normally it sells quickly!

The prices only goes up (not down) since some amazing cartridges have been discovered in Raul’s thread on audiogon and approved my many serious audiophiles (and tested against modern MC). 10 years ago the prices even for vintage MM cartridges were so incredibly low, so the smart users of this forum purchaced many of them. Now we know the top contenders for sure. Some of those cartridges were extremely expensive in the time when they were made (in the 70's and in the 80's). Where you can find it? How do you know which one to buy? Do your own search at least read this forum before posting what you’re posting.

If you know nothing, can’t find nothing, at least respect those private sellers (audiophiles) who discovered a rare units, shared their knowledge online, made honest grading, provided pictures etc for their customers. Anytime you buy anything on ebay you’re fully protected and full return is guaranteed by "ebay buyer’s protection", so even total idiots are protected. Ebay is always on the buyer’s side if you fill a claim. It’s hard to imagine a better service for the buyers. Do you think in this situation the seller will try to offer a non working unit or to rob a customer? It’s impossible. People who keep telling you it’s a risk to buy used cartridges knows nothing about it, really! In the worst case buyer can waste time, but it’s impossible to lose money on it (return is guaranteed by ebay’s buyer protection). It can be a nighmare or pain in the ass for the dishonest seller, but not for the buyer.

But actually it’s nice to read the description and ask question before buyin’ anything to maske sure what you’re buying. I have no idea why you’re talking about discogs here, selling records is not like selling a high-end cartridges! But even on discogs everyone is protected because you pay via paypal and you can always ask for full refund if you’re not happy with grading etc. People may have 10 000 records in the shop and can make mistakes in grading, but it’s hard to imagine anyone has even 1000 cartridges.

I use Dr. Feickert Analogue Protractor (Next Generation) to choose between Baerwald, Loefgren or Stevenson on different tonearm and this is a great tool compared to others i have used before. Not necessary to buy new to pay full price, they are much better priced on second hand market. For example another one that comes with HiFi Test LP is free. 

@cd318 

A low quality turntable (resonance and speed issues) with a high quality cartridge is always outperformed by a good turntable with a low quality cartridge.

Are you sure? Tracking is not the main factor, if your low quality cartridge does not reproduce the frequency range that a good quality cartridge can do with ease then your turntable can not help it even with top notch speed stability. If you can not extract what's on the record how come your turntable can help it? 

Technics, Pioneer, Denon, Victor, Micro Seiki made so many direct drive turntables, may of them are relatively cheap now (say $500), some of them are not high-end. The most popular is SL1200mk2 sold in a million copies with its stock $150 tonearm. Is that low quality? Speed stability is questionable? The better cartridge - the better the sound (especially if the arm is rewired) ! Does the bad cartridge sounds amazing on high-end Sp10mk2 with EPA-100 tonearm? Unfortunately not, it does not sounds better.

Again, i’m not sure what is "low quality" means to some of you, maybe cheap belt drive with speed stability issues that you can actually hear, but comparing one direct drive to another direct drive is another story.

The best combination is a great cartridge on the great tonearm/turntable, but in case with those classic and relatively cheap DD drives i would always upgrade the cartridge first.

The average cartridges never impressed me on the reference turntable in my system, i believe SP10mk2 or Lux PD444 have pretty good speed stability and Reed 3p is a true reference tonearm. But it is so easy to hear how weak is the cartridge if it’s not a top quality cartridge. I justs don't understand how a bad cartridge can reproduce music as good as the great cartridge?  It's noncence! 

@rauliruegas

Even with " non so perfect " speed stability you can’t recovery in any way what the cartridge can’t pick-up and that’s why is so important and critical the cartridge tracking abilities.
We can fix some kind of issues with the TT speed stability but we can’t fix the inherent cartridge self tracking abilities.

There are so many people who loves the SPU cartridges with it’s low tracking ability, low compliance and extremely high tracking force.

On the other hand we have those who prefer high compliance cartridges on lightweight tonearms, those cartridges are great trackers.

But since we’re not listening Telarc 812, the tracking abilities of the SPU is enough for many audiophiles. And if it’s not misstracking on normal records with normal music then it’s ok. For many analog lovers the theory and reality is not the same, what about those idler drives compared to direct drive etc ? Tube vs. transistors ... and so on.

The best way is just to listen to the music and fidn what you like personally (in reality) not on the paper with all the specs.

P.S. I have those high compliance cartridges, but i also have an SPU Royal G MK II with Ortofon Replican 100 stylus (the only spu with reduced tracking force). On the same turntable i have Ortofon MC2000 high compliacne MC right now. In theory the MC 2000 must be better, but the sound of that SPU with Replican 100 is amazingly good. What can i do? It’s my personal impression, but this impression is more important for me than anything else on the paper. And for each of us, i believe.

Everyone should watch this video to realize that adults can not develop perfect pitch. In Europe only 1 individual in 10 000 has a perfect pitch. You must be a child to develop perfect pitch. Even if you’re an adult musician you can not develop perfect pitch! This is very interesting phenomena. I would strongly recommend to watch Rick Beato’s video linked above, you will be surprised.

The statement that audiophiles are able to hear slightly different in pitch is bulls****it. You must have been trained from 2-3 years old to develop perfect pitch, it’s about the ability of the human brain. People with perfect pitch never makes a mistake when in comes to identify notes, chords etc, they just hear it and identify it like you can identify colors. Most of the professional musicians does not have a perfect pitch!

@frogman well, i do not exactly following your full conversation with Raul , i can lost in all those posts. You're right about pitch instable, same with off-centered record pressing, we can hear it, yes. But  i believe we cannot hear when 33.333 rpm spins at 33.332 rpm. And for those of us who're not a musicians even pitched up or pitched down records sounds just fine, i want to pitch up some of my records, remember those Technics turntables with +/- 8% pitch control? At the same time what about those recordings when you clearly hear that instruments are not tuned right to each other, or slightly off beat and it's all about the quality of the musicians, you can't help it with the turntable. It's hard to be a musician when you can hear all that imperfections. Probably studio time was too expensive for some of the independent bands and they're decided to leave it like that on the record. And finally, i think quality direct drive turntables are stable.