Dimond Cantilevers And Tip Mass


Something we don’t see discussed lately is tip mass and how responsive a cartridge is. Now what about these ruby and diamond cantilevers and what the effects of these cantilevers are? The diamond is still mounted to the cantilver with an epoxy, so it is not like the Sony of yore where it was a solid cantilever/diamond piece. Yes the cantilever should be stiffer with them gemstone, but what about at the cost of tip mass and how responsive it is? Secondly how well does the material damp resonances? It seems that in some respects that boron and compsoite materials might have an advantage here.

 

Has this come up in discussion recently? And have any conclusions been drawn?

neonknight

Showing 1 response by dogberry

The new owner of the London Decca name has told me he hopes to restart production of the Reference and to offer a new version. He had suggested they would be available in August of this year.

It is cheating, in a way, to include Deccas in this discussion, being tip-sensing cartridges with just a couple of millimeters of the end of the armature effectively acting as the cantilever. All the other moving iron designs (eg Grado, SS, Nagaoka) are quite different, though I would be fascinated to learn how the mass of stylus/cantilever/moving iron compares to the stylus/cantilever/magnet or stylus/cantilever/coils of more common MM and MC designs. Is the cantilever assembly of a Hyperion lighter than that of a high end MC cartridge? I don't know, but I'd be interested to find out.