Copper, silver, or gold MC cartridge coils?

The explanation about the Sony came from a site that reviewed item not from JC.

R.

Dear friends : In the long MM thread J.Carr touted a lot the Sony LOMC cartridges and especially the 55/88 top of the line and he did it because not the coils wire type but because its unique coils wiring shape:

""  The Figure 8 coil was meant to address to recurrent problems of moving-coil : low output, field-disturbing iron core, and increase of coil turns to increase output.

By giving one part of the armature a 90° twist, the two halves of the coil do not cancel each other out but produce voltage with both inward and outward movements.
No need to use a stronger iron core or increase the number of coil turns : linearity is improved, the cantilever isn't burdened by a heavier coil and output is doubled - simple. ""

So, exist several cartridge design characteristuics more imporant for the designers than the coil wire types that's important but with a different priority level in the cartridge designs. On Dynavector site you can read:

"""  At a glance, the XV-1 is different from all cartridges that have gone before. Its magnetic circuit comprises 8 small ALNICO magnets. The magnetic path is divided into two - In the magnetic gap, a specially designed magnetic flux equalizing piece is placed. On the front yokes, magnetic stabilizing coils are wound. By this special combination, the magnetic field becomes widely homogeneous and more linear than the conventional magnetic design that is common in existing MC cartridges. Currently the design trend of MC cartridges is to employ stronger and harder magnets. The XV-1 takes the opposite approach. This is the theoretical conclusion of Dynavector.  ""

Ortofon or Allaerts and other top manufacturers took special attention on several other cartridge design characteristics as with Ortophon is legendary Ortophase pattent.

Again and as @lewm  confirmed : ""  it is the overall design that counts far more. ""

R.

Dear @mijostyn : I think that the more expensive high output ( MM/MI ) cartridges are the ones coming from SoundSmith and PL never says he is using silver or gold wire in the coils but cooper.

No singler vintage HO MM/MI use silver wire in its coils. The rule is cooper as with LOMC ones too .

Some LOMC , maybe by marketing issue, use silver or gold wire but this is not " normal " and perhaps only a marketing hype to ask higher prices for it. Only the manufacturers can tell us the true behind their choosed coils wire types.
R.

Dear @edgewear : Yes you are rigth because Lyra asked for the Parnassus sample to build the Olympos and yes too with the Koetsu that does not needs a donor cartridge.

Yes, different application sonic benefits.

R.

Dear @edgewear :  You are rigth the Colibri samples sound a little different in between.
I owned wood/plastic body models and cooper/Gold ones I never had the opportunity to listen the platinum one.

My preference with the Colibri go to the low output 0.22mv cooper wire and old really ligth black plastic body: the best Colibri I listened everywhere and as you could agree top performer from all frequency range with a little " strong " character in the high freq. where is very demanding on VTA/VTF, additional very good tracker.

Unfortunatelly the other Colibri samples I owned/listened all were not 0.22mv output but higher and this cartridge characteristic has influence in what we listen to.
In the latest VDH designs ( say from two years now ) he choosed for way high output levels that goes even over0.7mv and the ones I heard it are good but nothing that can compare with the true LOMC VDH samples.

Koetsu is another case where I own or owned vintage models of Rosewood, Onyx and even one named silver till I finished with the platinum ones.
Like with the Colibri no two vintage same model Koetsu samples performs the same and seems to me tghat only when they switch to the platinum models Koetsu really started to takes its work truly " seriously " to achieve the audiophile sound needs.
Question is : quality levels changed because the platinum or because a better overall excecution to the cartridge design?, I think that both things but perhaps more inclined to a better overall cartridge design and cartridge QC through manufacture it.

Lyra is another example about the use of platinum in its Olympos model that was a departure from the Lyra cartridge signature kind of sound.
I had the opportunity to listen in deep to the Olympos mounted in a Schroeder tonearm, SP10MK3, MBL speakers, top SS phonolinepreamp, etc, etc. and I have to say that performs really good but a little in the warm side that's unfortunatelly is not what goes with my priorities but J.Carr  posted somewhere that more or less that was a characteristic of that model against the other more " dynamic/agressive models as the Titan i of those times.

All these first hand experiences along the different examples I posted here tells me that it's the overall design and quality level excecution to that design what really matters more than the kind of of wire used in the coils even I posted that the coils wiring shapes could be more important than the wire and this only a cartridge designer can tell us.

Btw, Allaerts use gold wire and the performance of its top models are first rate ( I owned ) however a little soft at the highs. As with silver and cooper wire that exist different quality levels maybe is the same with gold but I don't know for sure.

Lewm for me a phono cartridge item is way different than a SUT and has no relationship on the topic of this thread. What could be true for a SUT not necessary is true for a phono cartridge. I think that only gentlemans like JC or VDH can tell us all about.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R. 

Don : Do you think that these kind of music lovers/audiophiles buy or bought their cartridges because the cartridge coil wire type/kind?, no way almost no one decides on a cartruige thinking on that specific characteristic because it's just unimportant against the whole cartridge design.

@slaw  obviously as you said it's not a reference debate because there is no true reference about. We are just audiophiles not cartridge designers that are the ones that probably have something to say but I'm not sure they could have a debate about because  ( again ) the whole desig/sum of the parts is the really important ( what it counts. ) main issue.

R.

Dear @don_c55  and friends : I think that this example could help to support what I posted about the importance priotiy of cartridge wire type that I said is not so important as we could think.

This gentleman own several top phono cartridges including the Anna, Goldfinger, Etsuro and others ones:

https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/615

I understand that he owns not one but 2 Etsuro really expensive model and things are that the Etsuro use cooper wwire in its coils but ask
@mikelavigne about the Etsuro quality level performance and even against the other top tiers he owns and owned.


Here another example with the Hana top line cartridge with cooper wire in its coils where and Agoner just posted that he left it gone his Koetsu Onyx in favor of the Hana one and like @mikelavigne he owns the Anna too:
https://hana-cartridges.co.uk/hana-umami-mc-cartridge/

I insist in my point of view due that I can see you are just tilted to look for the superiority of each kind of wire in a cartridge design and for me just that " superiority " does not realñly exist because you can't prove it the superiority either way.

Btw, even its high price differences between the Hana and Etsuro shares one " thing " in common that were designed by Excel.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

Dear @don_c55 :  Everything is important in the cartridge quality performance and certainly the kind of wire in the coils it's but not so important to define the cartridge signature because all depends of the whole cartridge design and in particular the cartridge motor where the coils are part of it and let me to tell you that even the coil wiring shape could be even more important that the coil type.

A cartridge designer design his cartridge to a very specific quality performance level characteristics and it's through the rigth and precise combination of each cartridge part and quality level build excecution of that design as he will achieve those targets/characteristics targets.

In the other side each cartridge is designed with a market price point in mind.

What kind of value can has for you if I tell you that silver wire is the best or if other gentleman tells you that cooper is the one to go?, for me has no value at all because what are you or we evaluating behind that kind of coil wire?: just nothing at all.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.