That video wherein J Carr talks about many aspects of cartridge use and design reveals also that Benz helped Lyra obtain cantilevers, in addition to the brands named above.
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I agree with Mijostyn. For me, the only thing I can learn from reading the opinions of others on this or that piece of gear is that if 8 or 9 out of 10 hold the same or similar opinion, there may be some truth to it. Still, I approach even that much consensus with caution.
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I agree it’s not audible as “mistracking” necessarily. That was my point.
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With the Decca cartridges I have owned, I’ve always wondered whether their noteworthy zip and immediacy were not a fortuitous byproduct of mistracking owing to their lack of a cantilever. Sometimes imperfect is more.
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There likely is something to the idea that cartridge transient response is very important to conveying the sense of a live performance (studio or concert), because for me when I attend live music (as I will be doing in about 2 hours from now), the outstanding quality of real live music compared to electronic reproduction of music is the dynamics of the former. Dynamic responses or the sense of a dynamic response requires both a very rapid transient response and a wide range of amplitude (difference between the highest SPLs and the lowest SPLs). Not only do cartridges have shortcomings in this regard, but also speakers. At least that is my sense of it.
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Theophole, is the Epoch II LZ9S a modern, current product? I own an NOS Stanton 981LZS and an NOS CS100, but I’ve never heard of “Epoch”. Thx.
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If you don’t care, why do you keep arguing about it? SS claim the stereo Hyperion exhibits >36db stereo separation at 1kHz. Separation is pretty good at high frequencies too. Period.
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Raul, you’re misreading the data table. And what would be the meaning of “stereo separation” applied to any mono cartridge? Try again.
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I’d like to be present at a shootout between the Hyperion and a Grado Epoch3, two of the most expensive MI cartridges money can buy. And then I’d like to compare them to a B&O MMC1 or some others of the great vintage MI cartridges that never cost an arm and a leg, all on the same system of course.
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Here are stereo separation data, confirming >36db at 1kHz for the stereo version, and other pertinent data from the Upscale website. Can you find another cartridge with better numbers? I’m sure you can. My only point was these numbers are very good, better than most.
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I’m sorry but where do you see a claim that any mono cartridge affords stereo separation of any sort?
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If your amygdala knocks on your door, pretend you’re not home.
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I think you’re taking your own thread off its rails, Raul.
SS do publish channel separation data for Hyperion, >36db at 1kHz, if memory serves. Our previous disagreement about response data had to do with RIAA accuracy, not cartridge output.
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Take a closer look at those data that used to come routinely in the box with a new cartridge. They often show errors from flat of 1db. My other point was that no magnetic cartridge is flat in its output, because output goes up with frequency due to increasing stylus velocity. Therefore you’re looking at the output after RIAA filtering is applied. So that adds a source of error in assessing what the cartridge is really doing. I do quite agree that $10,000 is too costly, and I’m dubious about cactus needles. But I wouldn’t condemn the idea without listening.
My other point is that currently most cartridge makers don’t even make a claim as regards the upper and lower boundaries of frequency response, including Lyra.
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Actually it’s rare for a manufacturer to quote frequency response with upper and lower db boundaries. For a cartridge, +/- 1db between 20 and 20khz would seem to be excellent, keeping in mind we’re not talking about RIAA accuracy in a phono stage. Lyra claim 10 to 50kHz with no upper and lower boundaries. We can imagine those boundaries are much wider than +/- 1db.
Also, for any of these data to have real meaning, you’d want to know more about levels and the measuring method.
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Raul, I’ve never heard the Hyperion, but to be fair an error of +/-1db, as quoted for it, does not allow for 2db of error at any single frequency, as I’m sure you know. Furthermore the Hyperion excels at channel separation and at a few other standard parameters. Do the latter excellent numbers make it a great cartridge? In my mind, no. The only thing that counts is listening.
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I'm headed to Tokyo tomorrow morning, so no vinyl for about 3 weeks, for me.
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I've got an NOS Empire 4000D3, too, bought during the heyday of the MM cartridge thread, after it was announced that some vendor had a supply of them. I must say until now I did not know it was an MI type. Nor do I think I knew that Azden was MI. Ya learn something new every day.
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Thanks, Raul. Joseph is a good guy. I’ll contact him. I actually have an extra stylus assembly in which the metal structure along with cantilever and stylus have come unglued from the brown plastic yoke that supports them. Last night I looked at both styli under my microscope. I can’t see any sign of severe wear on either but the cartridge sounds bad(with the intact stylus assembly, of course).
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Forgot to add, anyone who has had work done successfully on an Astatic or Glanz cartridge, please share. (My reading suggests that Glanz MFG types are similar in design and function to Astatic MF types, and possibly that both of these moving flux cartridge lines came from the same source in Japan.)
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I found a business in CA that stocks lots of NLA transistors, both NPN and PNP. I bought both types from them when I was trying to get my Beveridge direct-drive amplifiers up and running, which I finally did do. Contact "Jameson Electronics". I forget what city they are in but definitely CA. I can get further info for you if you need it after Googling. MAT02 are NLA also, but I think there are later subs (e.g., MATXX, where X is numerical) that might work; you'd have to read the fine print on the data sheets. I have a small stash of the 02s, but I have never blown one.
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I think JLTi is single-ended and all solid state. (Yes?) AW used an FET in his FVP5, which is also SE but tube based. The MAT02 and other similar bipolar was used in his RTP3C, which was his TOTL and balanced. It’s all in his “Preamp Cook Book”, including schematics.
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Terry, my expertise with solid state is not very high. And my interests run toward learning about gain stages. But suffice to say that I followed advice from the late Allen Wright in his "Tube Preamp Cookbook", to learn how to build a balanced, hybrid cascode input stage with a solid state device on the bottom and tube on top. One of the devices AW recommended for that, and what he used in his own TOTL phono stage, is the MAT02, which is a bipolar transistor. After reading his book, I incorporated such a gain stage into my Atma-sphere MP1 phono section. Turns out, Raul and Jose' used the MAT02 or similar in their series of phonolinepreamps, for the MC gain stage. They use an FET, I think, for high output cartridges. (Their phonolinepreamps have two totally separate phono sections, one each for LOMC and MM/MI.) Anyway, maybe you were thinking about a balanced circuit, rather than "push-pull". Which of course you can build with tubes, too.
I think I recall that PNP and NPN power transistors can be paired to create a push-pull output stage. That's the better way to do it rather than with PNP on both sides. But that is as far as I can recall without opening a book. With tubes, there is no issue. Anyone who wants to correct me is welcome to do so.
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Raul, several years ago I acquired an MF2500 that is in bad shape. In fact Andy Kim advised me not to spend money on it, but I think that’s because he didn’t think it was worth much to begin with. Can you recommend someone? It certainly needs a retip but may need more. Thx.
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Terry, when you advised a push pull complementary device, were you thinking about a phono stage? Or an amplifier? Certainly that topology is more commonly associated with amplifier output stage design. In fact, I know of no phono stage in history that used a complementary push pull output stage. Unless you could say that the Atma-spher M P1 and MP3 preamps, which use a circlotRon output linestage might fit that description, broadly. Also, I just wanted to point out sheepishly that you can certainly do a fully complementary push pull output stage with tubes. It’s been done many many times , in the history of our hobby.
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Dover, I am aware of the difference between a capacitor and a resistor. By comparing the Russian SSG capacitors to a TX resistor I was only suggesting an analogy as regards the property of transparency. Most regard the TX2575 foil resistor as very neutral and transparent, as resistors go. The SSGs are similar, as capacitors go, in my opinion.
Raul, I am aware that tiny differences in capacitor value can alter RIAA. The SSGs are extremely tightly matched to their stated values, using my Sencore capacitor tester. The caps I replaced were a good match to the SSGs. This was in a tube phono stage, not the MP1.
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I don’t design RIAA circuitry. That’s over my head. I substituted.022 uF caps into an RIAA that already required .022uF.
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I highly recommend to anyone who knows how to solder and likes to experiment with different capacitor types that you acquire some Russian silver mica capacitors on eBay and give them a try. They are VERY large for very small values but very inexpensive. I have used.01uF and .022uF values mostly, in an RIAA circuit, and I use one at the inputs of my Beveridge amplifiers. The highest value I know about is 0.13uF, and those are about as big as half a pack of cigarets (if anyone can remember a pack of cigarets). These are absolutely as transparent and neutral as a TI TX2575 resistor. This is not just my opinion; the Russian silver micas have a bunch of followers on TubeDIY Asylum. They generally are rated for 350V, so can be used in most circuits.
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A related issue with using air dielectric capacitors in phono stages would be drift as air heats up or humidity changes. Thus it would be difficult to maintain accurate RIAA. On the other hand I guess the pF values in RIAA would be relatively easy to construct.
Raul, no, I cannot say I ever critically evaluated WIMA capacitors, except to say they’re all over the 3160, and I do like the 3160. I’ve not had the urge to tinker with it in any way except for the attenuator upgrade, which you know about.
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I used to use the Multicap RTX caps for critical applications. (Those are the polystyrenes.) But in my listening opinion, the teflon capacitors that came along later are far better (REL or other). In fact, now I cannot bear the RTXs, and I have a bunch of them in many different values. I also found some 2uF/200V polystyrenes (so not applicable for RIAA or hi-pass filtering unless your filter is set at a high-ish frequency), made by PAS (Pacific Audio Supply), that are unsurpassed for output coupling capacitors. I originally bought 36 of them to use as a high pass filter in my Sound Lab speakers, and when I totally removed the high pass filter in the speakers, I ended up with a box full of the PAS which I then tried experimentally in output coupling and now love. Sadly, PAS is now defunct. I have several PAS polystyrene also in 0.22uF/600V; Ralph used to use them as internal coupling caps in his OTLs. They’re superb but fairly large and don’t fit everywhere. For low value capacitance below 0.1uF, I have found the Russian silver mica capacitors the most absolutely transparent. I use them in RIAA. They were or are cheap on eBay. I guess my point is that no one company or no one type of capacitor is "best" for all applications. You have to experiment and listen.
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I looked for the Paradise on line. Found a thread that included many favorable opinions of 3- and 4-box versions. Seems to be a mix of SS and tube gain devices. Since it’s got tubes for gain, I doubt it operates based on current or transconductance, unless the latter term is used to describe voltage mode. Because tubes lose transconductance as they age which would screw up RIAA. But still, it is much admired. Reminds me of the Herron phono that has ardent supporters in this side of the pond.
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I don't know or didn't know what a "transconductance" phono stage is, but I do know that the word "transconductance" has a specific definition, in that it is a measure of how voltage output changes with respect to current input, usually measured in A/V, and since that is the inverse of an ohm, the units are "mhos". For triodes, typically expressed in micromhos. Anyway, Dover, thanks for your response to my question. If you are correct, then that seems a bit of an odd way to do RIAA, since the RIAA curve is defined based on voltage changes, owing to the fact that a magnetic phono cartridge of any category, increases its output voltage according to stylus velocity, which increases with frequency. So an RIAA filter operates based on db as a measure of relative signal voltage amplitude. But since db starts life as a measure of Power, I guess it can also be a measure of current. I dunno.
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"Transconductance" = voltage mode amplification, the way you are using the term?
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dogberry, To the question posed in the first paragraph of your post, most of us would say "of course not". We each hear differently for reasons that have been belabored here many times over. At the same time, I would like to think that when we say something is "blue", we all have an idea what blue is, except of course those of who are color-blind with respect to blue. So if ten out of ten or eleven of us say that a cartridge sounds like X, I tend to believe I have some idea how that cartridge sounds, in some other systems, and even though I have never heard the cartridge.
As far as this business of ascribing separate powers and specific functions that govern our perceptions of audio systems to different regions of the brain (amygdala, limbic system, etc), I say as a physician and scientist (albeit not a neuroscientist) please take that information with more than a dollop of salt. The subject is interesting but the supporting data are conditional at best. Nor do I think it even matters how we process the audible information that comes out of our audio systems. But certainly I don't feel that my life is threatened (necessitating a fight or flight response) when listening to Miles Davis.
Pindac, You mentioned a "transconductance" phono stage. By that term do you mean to indicate a stage that uses voltage gain, as opposed to current gain, at its input?
With regard to Raul's recent experience with current drive, I tend to agree, but I would not at all feel qualified to say that all voltage gain phono stages are superior to all current driven phono stages. (Nor would Raul, I am sure.) I would only say that current drive is no panacea for all that may ail voltage drive. This is based on my own experiments in my own home system using several different LOMC cartridges
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Somehow, two different discussions got twisted together, the questions of whether reproduced frequencies above the range of your or my hearing acuity have any effect on your or my perception of music vs whether one should listen with eyes open or closed. IMO, both questions are more interesting than the question of what type of cartridge Joe Blow of Audiogon Forums likes best. And yet this thread on that subject will go on forever; Raul is a genius at posing open-ended questions that provoke opinions for the sake of having an opinion.
On the first new question, Raul and the published scientific papers he quotes are undeniably correct. The fact that our sense of SQ is affected by reproduction of frequencies we cannot "hear" by the criterion of audiometry has been shown many times. This could be due in part to bone conduction or whatever, but it's a fact that I not only accept but am grateful for, since I am old and subject to age-related hf hearing loss. In his white paper on designing preamplifiers, Allen Wright even claimed that he or his listeners could detect a difference in treble response between a circuit that went out to 1 MHz vs a different version that went out to 750KHz, when he experimented with two different configurations of the same preamplifier driving the same downstream system. (That seems a little extreme, even to me.)
On the second new question, I am not sure what is the issue. No one seems to be saying that eyes open vs eyes closed makes no difference. For sure, it makes a big difference to me in perception of soundstage and location of instruments and distortions produced by the venue or the PA system in any live venue. I experienced this as recently as the last few days when we attended two different live performances, one in a local jazz club and one in a small concert hall which has very good acoustics. At any live venue, I always listen both ways, eyes open vs eyes closed, just to amuse myself but also to get an idea how what I am seeing and listening to might sound if I could only hear it on a home system. My late audiophile friend had an extensive library of DVDs containing live jazz performances. He had a huge flat screen TV flanked by high end Martin Logan ESLs and driven by quality amplification. I spent many hours listening with him while we watched the actual performance on the screen. What happened was I lost nearly all consciousness of or obsession with purely the sound quality. I was immersed in the experience as if it was happening in front of me.
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Bipolar transistor for balanced circuit; FET for single-ended circuit. Either used in a cascode topology with a tube "on top", gives very high gain with very low noise.
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Small point: I did not mean to declare definitively that LOMCs can fail to produce realistic piano music because of low compliance resulting in mistracking. I certainly do not know that to be the case. I was just offering that as one unsubstantiated possibility. I do also observe that my LOMCs with highish compliance, like the Ortofon MC2000, do a much better job on piano. Thus I infer there might be a relationship. But I campaign against making associations that seem logical but for which there is no direct evidence, and that is one example of such.
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Mijostyn, You wrote, "The one huge advantage of high output cartridges is a much better signal to noise ratio which everyone will notice right away." That is actually a very complex statement, not completely correct and not completely incorrect, in my opinion. To begin with a low output cartridge will per se have a worse SN ratio when its signal reaches the first amplification stage, simply because noise due to the LP surface irregularities and etc is a fixed base affecting all types equally and signal is purely a function of the cartridge output. So LO cartridges are at a disadvantage vs HO cartridges purely as regards the ratio of S to N, because S is relatively low. But at the phono stage output, I would think the disadvantage in SN ratio is ameliorated at least to a degree (different for each of the myriad of different possible combinations of cartridge and phono stage), if the phono stage is very low in noise and I suppose if one is using a SUT to supply some voltage gain for an LOMC. Anyway, I am rarely bothered by the sense that noise is a problem with LO cartridges. What I sense when comparing let’s say a good LOMC to a good MI cartridge is that the LOMC always seems just a tad lean compared to real music and compared to what the best MI cartridges can do. With the latter on average I get a greater sense of the real. Especially on piano jazz do I sense problems with good LOMCs. Again, I have never had a $10K+ LOMC in my system, or even one costing much more than $6K.
Since LOMC cartridges tend to be low in compliance, I would guess that most of my mild dissatisfaction with even "good" ones is due to mistracking, especially on piano. So that would be my beef with LOMC, not noise.
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Mahler, in my opinion, no, it is not possible to generalize about the different transduction mechanisms, as regards a pecking order of what gives best SQ. All MCs are certainly not better than all MMs, to address your specific point.
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Dover, I don’t think I can be wrong for asking why a “good LOMC cartridge” (whatever that is) would produce lowest groove noise. Because I’ve made no assertion. I just wanna know why. Of course I also think compliance, VTA, stylus shape, and almost everything else have more to do with groove noise than the mechanics of transduction.
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The answer to Raul's OP question seems to be no, nobody knows which cartridge type is inherently "better". But most of us have an opinion.
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Please offer a mechanism to explain why a “good LOMC suppressed groove noise better than the others”, other than that’s your opinion.
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Hi Dave! Good to hear from you. I too was influenced by Raul’s thread, which led me to purchase several highly regarded vintage MM and MI cartridges. Two of those were Stanton 980LZS and an NOS Stanton 981LZS. I loved the 980 until I wore it out. But I only recently unboxed the 981, and I installed it on my Viv Float (underhung) tonearm. It’s on my modified Lenco driving my Steelhead via MC inputs, which drives my Beveridge 2SWs. The combo is fantastic. For those who don’t know, the 981 is a low output MM cartridge (0.3mV), requiring MC gain. The 981LZS is just a selected version of the 980LZS. There are also high output versions, HZS suffix. I’m using 1000 ohms load. 47K also works fine.
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If you heard a Grado, chances are you’ve heard a MI cartridge.
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So you have no extensive experience with MI cartridges. OK. Of all types with which I have experience, the HOMC is on the bottom. There are great things about LOMC, MI, and MM, but I have no love for HOMC when any of those other types are available. For me, the HOMC appears to be an MC cartridge developed expressly for those who own MM phono stages and who can be lured to try an MC but don't want to or cannot afford an upgrade to a high gain phono stage suitable for an LOMC. It’s pure marketing. (Please do not conclude that I condemn them all; I am sure some are just fine. And by "HOMC", I mean an MC with greater than 1mV output.)
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But Pindac, you did not mention MI (Moving Iron) types. Do you own one? Have you heard one in a familiar system? If you are a mere 60 years old, do not sell your ears short. Unless you have been exposed to very loud noises due to occupation or rock concert going or have had a disease that causes degeneration of hearing acuity, you should still be fine.
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How can fuzziness improve fidelity to the real? Furthermore any quality “imparted” by the cartridge is per se a distortion. Nevertheless, if you put a gun to my head, I’d say I prefer MI. I don’t say it too loudly because I’ve never heard a $10K+ LOMC in my home systems.
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