I am surprised if PL recommends setting AS using a blank area on an LP, but I do not doubt the veracity of Elliot’s description of the video. On the other hand, I am not going to watch it. Since the skating force arises from the friction of the stylus in the groove plus lack of tangency to the groove acting in concert, it has always seemed to me that the most accurate way to set AS is to have the stylus running on a grooved part of an LP. The contact patches of a stylus are not engaged when the stylus is riding on a blank surface, or at least they are not engaged in the same way as they are during play. Therefore, friction is likely to be different on a blank surface vs on a grooved surface. But I guess that since the skating force is ever changing during play due both to tracking angle error changing and to changes in groove tortuosity, the whole thing is a crapshoot at best, so it doesn’t matter how you set AS; the AS will usually not be quite correct for countering the skating force.
High Performance Moving Iron Cartridge Candidates?
I have decided to simplify my analog set up a bit. removed the fussy cartridges and SUT's, and am down to one external phono stage, and the internal one in my Trinov preamp.
The Trinov preamp is MM only, and I don;t want to use a step up or headamp with it. So that means high output moving coil or a MM type cartridge.
I read on these boards that a MI cartridge can have lower moving mass than a moving coil I would like to experiment.
What are the viable candidates these days? I imagine most vintage ones do not have OEM styli available still. The Soundsmith ones are interesting, but get very spendy. This is meant to be a casual cartridge for me, but I will spend some money on it. Just not Air Tight or Koetsu money.
What are other choices? Not typically fond of Grado I heard in the past. Otherwise I think Nagaoka is the only other one I know of?
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- 46 posts total
- 46 posts total