Hear my Cartridges....🎶

A subject dear to my heart, thank you @halcro  for posting :)
For me the differences were not big (iphone6+apple earbuds) and had to switch back and forth several times. The most prominent is the "LF breathng" at 15K. It adds a very nice foundation to the sound, organizing it not only at LF but higher up in the spectrum. Add to the illusion of the recording venue. The bass (surprisingly) more controlled and (perhaps?) less boomy. In general, more involving and interesting presentation.
I'm not yet at the load play with my LDR but will try going down to 15K definitely!

Not going much recently unfortunately - have been locked down 350km from my system. Waiting for all this to finish and comeback to experimenting with my LDR.

Dear
@frogman   LDR is indeed a v special cartridge, definitely worth considering if funds permit. BTW I think @halcro should get some  $$ from London for all the promotional job he has done ;)
It is stimulating (as always!) to read your impressions. Interestingly how we interpret "organizing" here. For me, 15K was slightly better organizing the sounds in the sound spectrum while for you in space :) Sort of complementary views: frequency vs localization. I re-listened several times but honestly could not detect the pipe organ moving in front/behind the orchestra, but I'm admittedly not very sensitive to spatial information (have definitely sth to learn here).  In some churches the organ is actually at the back or on a side. Interesting how this particular record was recorded, where was the organ? Halcro, any chance to dig that info out :) ?

Fantastic thread @halcro ! Thank you v much for all your effort and sharin your experience, really invaluabe!
DLR has been long on my radar and your findings only heat up my interest. I'd use it on my EMT 930 with silver wired  FR64s and Orsonic AV-101 headshell (~16g), connected by AQ Leopard silver cable. Any experience on how DLR mates with silver wires and the Orsonic headshell?
Thank you in advance,b

Hi @halcro & thank you for the kind words and explanations :)
It is interesting what you write about the Orsonic, here is a guy who measured a number of headshells and claims it is one of the most rigid:
http://korfaudio.com/blog51
While we are at vibrations, I have one somewhat non-orthodox comment regarding your DLR/88D/Palladian shootout: Your both TT's are very close to the speakers, making them potentially prone to strong structure and air borne vibrations. The Victor, carrying 88D in the test had a benefit of an active isolation platform (effectively cutting all vibs below at least 200Hz). The other TT, carrying DLR did not have that. What I can clearly hear from your videos (iphone+iphone earbuds) is that 88D is more transparent, open, and direct and DLR, however surprising, more recessed and somewhat muddier, less convincing. I've heard many times the effect of a proper suspension (have a small company doing that) and it is often quite similar to the 88D/DLR difference in your videos. So my suspicion is that some part of the DLR/88D difference re the transparency might be due to the lack of the suspension below the Raven (not to mention of course the difference between the TT's).
My 2c :)
Cheers, b
PS I listen on Stax headphones, mostly on O2MkI driven by Blue Hawaii SE amp.

Hi Halcro,
Thank you for your explanations. Contrary to you I feel quite ok with KorfAudio mesurement techniques. Impulse excitation is a completely standard method in vibroanalysis (the usual knuckle test is a simple version of it ;) That his results may not correlate with listening is another story of course. BTW, the weirdest hammers I’ve seen where in vibration labs - so called impact hammers with coax cable sticking out of them :) One of the basic tools.
Do I see correctly that you use Yamamoto ebony with LDR? There is another A’gon fellow reporting better results using LDR with Yamamoto than (the lighter) Orsonic:
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/arche-headshell-with-london-reference-cartridge-fantastic-res...

Structure-borne Sound Transmission is the single most damaging phenomenon to vinyl playback but suspended decks cannot protect against the 1-10 Hz Structure-Borne resonances.

I’m sure your active Herzan or Accurion does :)

I have listened to the LDR on all three tonearms around the DD Victor TT-101 and the ’sound’ in my room (and headphones) is similar to what you are hearing on the Raven.
Frogman however, and many other listeners to the videos, are quite impressed with the sound from the LDR 😃

Ok, thank you, so the TT and suspension is not much of a factor here - seems 88D is just inherently more transparent than LDR. BTW, I am myself too quite impressed with LDR and considering it for my system is what has brought me here :) But that 88D is in your videos more impressive for my ears. If only I could get one..

Cheers,b

@noromance can it be that the 12" arm has a higher effective mass which Decca's seem to prefer?

Well I've just ordered an LDR motivated by Halcro's videos. Let's see what I get. BTW, @Halcro it was not a warranty repair after only a few weeks of use?

Hi guys, thanks for the encouragement :) I’ve ordered through via the only possible way - through Presence Audio and Brian Smith. I’ll specify that I want more lively rather than darker signature. I think the headshell can do something here too. I’ll start with Orsonic 101 which is the heaviest I have. BTW after reading @Halcro comments I tried bending it with my fingers. No freaking way I could deform it.

@noromance Surprisingly 47k in my circumstances (all this loading is very very ’personal’) wasn’t that sparkling. The bass was cut, which I could easily verify changing to SPU Silver Meister mounted on the same deck and well, deeply loaded. But the crazy sparkle of 33k wasn’t there. BTW the bass of 33k and lower is simply superb! Deep organic, explosive when needed. Just the heights that run into overload sometimes which i guess was not the recording engineers' intention.

I’m using RN60 Dales for finding the right value, then switching to Charcroft Z-foils. Very transparent resistors.

Hey @halcro :)) !
I hope it is ok to post it here, could not find a better thread.
I've finally tested very low (16.5k) load on my London Decca Reference, motivated by your earlier findings from may 2020
" At 15K Ohms and 430pF....the cartridge simply comes 'alive'....
The changes in loading produce more fundamental differences than heard on many of the cartridge vs cartridge comparisons IMO "
I first went down from 49k to 33k. Together with a VTA adjustment and one magic trick (change of....ekhm...fuses in the amp...;) this gave me absolutely thrilling sound. Super direct, "naked", alive but to extreme, wild, unpredictable, soundstage to die for, music touching me deeply so that I had to make frequent stops while listening to digest what I was hearing. Or so was the 1st impression. On the downside the tonal balance was still shifted upwards or so I suspect. Great operatic voices of the past like Sutherland would quite frequently run into an overload on the highest notes.

I then went to 16.5k. I have not control over the capacitance so in both cases 33k and 16.5k it was the same, around 300pf including the tonearm cable. The sound: More polite, a bit recessed, flowing, musical, creamy and syrupy, not so raw and unpredictable, soundstage more recessed and a bit less detailed. The tonal balance seemed better, the high note overload gone without the bass becoming loose and boomy. But I had a feeling I've lost something. This incredible "naked  directness". I've changed output tube in the phono and some of the sparkle came back but still there is this a bit of that syrupy souce of politeness left.

I plan to test 25k tomorrow to "control the sparkle" as you have put it nicely :)

Thank you v much for sharing your experience and a continuous inspiration Halcro!

My LDR assault continues...
At 16.5k, changed VTF from 1.90 to 1.81. Opened up the sound a bit. Good. I do not dare to touch VTA as I think I’m in the sweet spot and I don’t use VTA for tonal adjustments.
Keeping 1.81g, I jumped from 16.5k straight to 28.8k. Wow again! First thing to notice - paradoxically - was the bass! More punchy, more present, giving a better foundation for the rest. The syrup of 16.k loading almost gone. More contrast both dynamical and in frequency extremes. More drama almost at the 33k level but still not there. Like a ride on high speed where do don’t know what’s rounder the next turn (although the LP’s I’m using I know by heart). Damn loving it!

As for the HF overload I reported with 33k - I had that epiphany at night. What if my amp is overloaded or the headphones (I listen on Stax O2mkI) overload my ears? Cause the rest sounded to damn right to be accidental. It was it! Me bimbo, big bimbo. Was enough to lower a bit the volume...Some sharpness at the highest notes/volumes still remained but recalling the ancient times when we still had live concerts in Europe, my ears (esp. the left one) would get occasionally overloaded at high pitch/high volume tones. So I choose to live with that given the rest of the benefits.


Summarizing, I’m returning to 33k. But instead of a dirty, long leaded parallel connection of two Dale resistors I’ve been using now, I will use Z-foils, pre-burnt for a week and soldered with short leads directly at the RCA sockets. I believe this location works best for me, picking least of environmental EMI (measured once). This can also give some extra clarity and clean some artefacts- witnessed that already a couple of times. Then will play with VTF only.

Now a bit of speculations why 33k works for me: The manufacturer states the optimal LDR parameters (I guess optimal means the flattest FR) as 33k/220pF with the cart inductance 130mH. I suspect having around 290-300pf - the EAR834 is around 200pF = AQ leopard cable 60pf + my DIY EAR has an input selector and extra wiring around it so adds some pF. In theory a lower load should be best. Calculation shows 21k, adding some 35% extra as London does gives 28.5k. However my Staxes are a bit recessed and darker sounding. Extra few kOhms at 33k possibly compensate for that. Just my speculations :)

By the same token, estimado Raul, the tonearm I use is the one used by the cartridge designer himself - FR64S. Not to get into random walking yourself, it's good to first make sure you know what you are writing about.