Detachable Head shell or Not?

One major benefit from having a detachable headshell or arm tube is the ability to remove the cartridge for thorough stylus cleaning.

During Covid lockdowns I used the time to go through all my cartridges and clean them thoroughly. What I realised is that unless you can remove the cartridge to put the stylus tip in good light ( led plus natural ) under a 30 times Lupe - you cannot see the stylus clearly enough to clean it thoroughly.

@jafox 

You raise some great points. I look at cables a little differently to most. I assume all cables degrade the sound, and therefore when I assess cables I am looking for the cable that does the least damage - least damage in terms of transparency, noise floor, coherency. I see too many people using cables as a bandaid to a system issue - check the forums "looking for a cable with good bass..." or other criteria.

With regard to phono cables it gets a little bit interesting because there is no one size fits all. Electrically the tonearm cable is part of a tuned system that includes the cartridge and the receiving device - be it phono stage, moving coil set up ( transformer or other active mc step up ). Therefore unless everyone has the same cartridge/phono, experiences and opinions will vary, as they do.

I note that neither Audioquet or Stealth provide any electrical specifications for their phono cables - no capacitance figures, no data on phase shifts at varying frequencies etc etc.

So for most folk phono cables are a lottery - suck it and see. And in many situations I have seen folk come to grief because they have a cable bandaid, they upgrade their system and the cable bandaid doesn't work with the new gear.

For my own system I use 2 phono cables depending on cartridge.

For MM's I use a custom Audioplan phono cable - silver, twisted pair, shielded  ultra low capacitance. This was a manufacturers sample never released to public - too expensive.

For MC's ( which is what I primarily listen to ) I use either MIT Oracle phono or some custom cables I have built myself using MIT Varilay wire as a builtin block from the 80's. They are very capacitive which is why they don't work with MM's.

I have a lot in the bin - Ikeda, Audio Tekne, Audioquest and many others in the parts bin. Most of these do too much damage. I have not heard the Hyperphono, the Audioquest Leopard is average, not particularly transparent, low level detail goes awol in my experience.

Finally we have to remember that listening preferences vary considerably from person to person, some folk want a nice smooth sound, some want zero noise, some want "fast zippy sound" - when I had an audio shop I heard it all.

My advice for any cable purchaser is audition in your own system, listen for musical coherence, low noise floor and transparency - do not focus on a specific attribute - and do not believe any reviews, use them as guides only.

@edgewear

the Zen Diamond is one of those ‘oldies’ that had me convinced that no ‘sea change’ in sonic improvement has occurred in recent years that would justify the ridiculous pricing of current top MC’s.

It is not as bad as you think - a $1k cartridge in the mid 80’s would be $5-6k in todays money - 37 years later. Average wages have gone up 5-700% in that time period. Would you spend your prime years building the best cartridge in the world for $2.00 an hour ?

Having said that $11-15k plus is gouging in my view. Unfortunately there are buyers prepared to pay stupid money to have something most people can't afford.

The value add proposition is n longer sound quality - its ego.

Have you noticed each time an outrageous price barrier is passed, for example the first $100k turntable, the floodgates open.

@edgewear 

Can’t wait for the first 20k+ cartridge and the accompanying marketing nonsense. Or is it already among us?

You have missed the boat - there have been artisanal cartridges well north of US$20k available for a number of years in Europe - made to order. You won't find them in the usual places.

@mijostyn 

If you get an older Corvette - you know the ones that handle like a tractor - you'll get substantially more testosterone buzz for less money.

But I like your negotiation technique - I always advise my audio buddies to pick the biggest ugliest speaker they can find to show the partner. Anything after that will be an easy sell.

@lewm 

@pindac 

'what tonearm offers both a continuous wire connection AND an interchangeable headshell? '

Kuzma 4Point arms all have detachable headshell and continuous wiring run from cartridge to phono - no joins.

Furthermore you can remove the arm tube completely with continuous wiring still attached to make attaching the wires to the cartridge pins easier after you have install the headshell alternate headshell.

Brilliant system.