MC-MM-MI CARTRIDGES . DO YOU KNOW WHICH HAS BETTER QUALITY PERFORMANCE? REALLY?


Dear friends:The main subject of this thread is start a dialogue to find out the way we almost all think or be sure about the thread question :  " true " answer.

 

Many years ago I started the long Agon MM thread where several audiophiles/Agoners and from other audio net forums participated to confirm or to discover the MM/MI/IM/MF/HOMC world and many of us, me including, was and still are" surprised for what we found out in that " new " cartridge world that as today is dominated by the LOMC cartridges.

 

Through that long thread I posted several times the superiority of the MM/types of cartridges over the LOMC ones even that I owned top LOMC cartridge samples to compare with and I remember very clearly that I posted that the MM and the like cartridges had lower distortion levels and better frequency range quality performance than the LOMC cartridges.

 

In those times j.carr ( Lyra designer ) was very active in Agon and in that thread  I remember that he was truly emphatic  posting that my MM conclusion was not  true due that things on distortion cartridge levels in reality is the other way around: LOMC has lower distortion levels.

 

Well, he is not only a LOMC cartridge designer but an expert audiophile/MUSIC lover with a long long and diverse first hand experiences listening cartridges in top TT, top tonearms and top phono stages and listening not only LOMC cartridges but almost any kind of cartridges in his and other top room/systems.

 

I never touched again that subject in that thread and years or months latter the MM thread I started again to listening LOMC cartridges where my room/system overall was up-graded/dated to way superior quality performance levels than in the past and I posted somewhere that j.carr was just rigth: LOMC design were and are superior to the other MM type cartridges been vintage or today models.

 

I'm a MUSIC lover and I'm not " married " with any kind of audio items or audio technologies I'm married just with MUSIC and what can gives me the maximum enjoyment of that ( every kind )  MUSIC, even I'm not married with any of my opinions/ideas/specific way of thinking. Yes, I try hard to stay " always " UNBIASED other than MUSIC.

 

So, till today I followed listening to almost every kind of cartridges ( including field coil design. ) with almost every kind of tonearms and TTs and in the last 2 years my room/system quality performance levels were and is improved by several " stages " that permits me better MUSIC audio items judgements and different enjoyment levels in my system and other audio systems. Yes, I still usemy test audio items full comparison proccess using almost the same LP tracks every time and as always my true sound reference is Live MUSIC not other sound system reproduction.

 

I know that the main thread subject is way complicated and complex to achieve an unanimous conclusions due that exist a lot of inherent differences/advantages/unadvantages in cartridges even coming from the same manufacturer.

 

We all know that when we talk of a cartridge we are in reality talking of its cantilever buil material, stylus shape, tonearm used/TT, compliance, phono stage and the like and my " desire " is that we could concentrate in the cartridges  as an " isolated " audio item and that  any of our opinions when be posible  stay in the premise: " everything the same ".

 

My take here is to learn from all of you and that all of us try to learn in between each to other and not who is the winner but at the " end " every one of us will be a winner.

 

So, your posts are all truly appreciated and is a thread where any one can participates even if today is not any more his analog alternative or is a newcomer or heavily experienced gentleman. Be my guest and thank's in advance.

 

Regards and ENJOY THE MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,

R.

Ag insider logo xs@2xrauliruegas

@mijostyn  : My mistake because I owned the DL 1000A and was and is way way better than any Koetsu of those times and I know becase I owned almost all Koetsu cartridges of those times.

Even today the DL 1000A is a great performer and one of the favorities of your Lambda designer and you can ask him.

 

That the speaker can not reproduce is not the issue.

 

R.

Dear @terry9 @mijostyn  and friends:It's obvious that not only the " color " on each cartridge changes but mainly the " color " where the other named characteristics change too but in different way and in way lower gradation.

 

Now, my audio/sound/MUSIC experiences through over 40+ years gave me a lot of lessons on how a human being " hears and listen and in my case this is what I do when listening at my place and what I learned it happening:

first I like to listen MUSIC/recordings at nigth when the street noise floor is lower as is my building noise floor.

I never wear any kind of clothe not made it by natural fabric as cotton, wool, silk and the like.

I don't listen with the room/system ligth off but not very shiny and I never listen with my eyes closed. Yes, my seat position is near field and when I want to listen something seriously by seat is a wood chair with my head totally free of any near boundary because my normal seat is a confortable couch that absorb the sound from speakers what is not a good idea.

 

There's Life Above 20 Kilohertz!
A Survey of Musical Instrument Spectra to 102.4 KHz


James Boyk
California Institute of Technology
Music Lab, 0-51 Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
Tel: +626 395-4590, E-mail: boyk@caltech.edu
Home: http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~musiclab

Copyright © 1992, 1997 James Boyk. All rights reserved.

 

Abstract
      

At least one member of each instrument family (strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion) produces energy to 40 kHz or above, and the spectra of some instruments reach this work's measurement limit of 102.4 kHz. Harmonics of muted trumpet extend to 80 kHz; violin and oboe, to above 40 kHz; and a cymbal crash was still strong at 100 kHz. In these particular examples, the proportion of energy above 20 kHz is, for the muted trumpet, 2 percent; violin, 0.04 percent; oboe, 0.01 percent; and cymbals, 40 percent. Instruments surveyed are trumpet with Harmon ("wah-wah") and straight mutes; French horn muted, unmuted and bell up; violin sul ponticello and double-stopped; oboe; claves; triangle; a drum rimshot; crash cymbals; piano; jangling keys; and sibilant speech. A discussion of the significance of these results describes others' work on perception of air- and bone-conducted ultrasound; and points out that even if ultrasound be taken as having no effect on perception of live sound, yet its presence may still pose a problem to the audio equipment designer and recording engineer.


Given the existence of musical-instrument energy above 20 kilohertz, it is natural to ask whether the energy matters to human perception or music recording. The common view is that energy above 20 kHz does not matter, but AES preprint 3207 by Oohashi et al. claims that reproduced sound above 26 kHz "induces activation of alpha-EEG (electroencephalogram) rhythms that persist in the absence of high frequency stimulation, and can affect perception of sound quality.[4]
      Oohashi and his colleagues recorded gamelan to a bandwidth of 60 kHz, and played back the recording to listeners through a speaker system with an extra tweeter for the range above 26 kHz. This tweeter was driven by its own amplifier, and the 26 kHz electronic crossover before the amplifier used steep filters. The experimenters found that the listeners' EEGs and their subjective ratings of the sound quality were affected by whether this "ultra-tweeter" was on or off, even though the listeners explicitly denied that the reproduced sound was affected by the ultra-tweeter, and also denied, when presented with the ultrasonics alone, that any sound at all was being played.
      From the fact that changes in subjects' EEGs "persist in the absence of high frequency stimulation," Oohashi and his colleagues infer that in audio comparisons, a substantial silent period is required between successive samples to avoid the second evaluation's being corrupted by "hangover" of reaction to the first.
      The preprint gives photos of EEG results for only three of sixteen subjects. I hope that more will be published.

In a paper published in Science, Lenhardt et al. report that "bone-conducted ultrasonic hearing has been found capable of supporting frequency discrimination and speech detection in normal, older hearing-impaired, and profoundly deaf human subjects." [5] They speculate that the saccule may be involved, this being "an otolithic organ that responds to acceleration and gravity and may be responsible for transduction of sound after destruction of the cochlea," and they further point out that the saccule has neural cross-connections with the cochlea. [6]

Even if we assume that air-conducted ultrasound does not affect direct perception of live sound, it might still affect us indirectly through interfering with the recording process. Every recording engineer knows that speech sibilants (Figure 10), jangling key rings (Figure 15), and muted trumpets (Figures 1 to 3) can expose problems in recording equipment. If the problems come from energy below 20 kHz, then the recording engineer simply needs better equipment. But if the problems prove to come from the energy beyond 20 kHz, then what's needed is either filtering, which is difficult to carry out without sonically harmful side effects; or wider bandwidth in the entire recording chain, including the storage medium; or a combination of the two.
      On the other hand, if the assumption of the previous paragraph be wrong — if it is determined that sound components beyond 20 kHz do matter to human musical perception and pleasure — then for highest fidelity, the option of filtering would have to be rejected, and recording chains and storage media of wider bandwidth would be needed.  "

 

 

 

Now, human being " hears " not only with the ears but with his whole body along all his different senses and all the concious information stocked in his brain Amygdala but down there the majority of the Amygdala information we are not concious but has direct influence in all what our body does or reacts. Even our brain with all its resources and it does not matters that mijos can listen to 16khz the brain and senses synthetize over 50khz even if the speakers can's do it.

We are 24 hours alive and everything counts that's why I don't listen with my eyes closed because when I close my eyes immediatly I " look " different " figures/scenarios/ideas " etc etc.

The sense of vew is way important when we are listen at home as is to choose a time to listen when our nervous system is more or less in equilibrium because if we are under high distress or something to worry our senses are afected directly and the rhythm of what we are listening changes that when we are listening in equilibrium.

 

It's really complex what happens around/surround us and normally we don't take care about. I care on all the listening experience at a live event or in a room/system.

 

As all of you I listen my system to live each time the developing of the MUSIC enjoyment, I'm a MUSIC lover not a hardware lover.

 

R.

Oh no Raul, a new subject to argue over debate.  Should we listen with our eyes closed or open?

;^)

I never thought I would be associating something, that could be described as almost Monty Python'esc, in relation to how to separate oneself from the usual, to enforce ones place as being the authority.

As an individual who does not like to suggest too much, without having a experience of such a subject that can offer some value, and one who promotes the idea, to avoid being participant in the following :

"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which can not fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance-that principle is contempt prior to investigation." 

To align myself, at some time in the future, I will be in my listening room, with Chalk Painted Decor, Wood and Wool Rug Floor Covering, with Soft Furnishings produced from Wool and Organically Grown Plants produced into Fabric.

Where I will be seated in a free space position, whilst seated on my Cottage Industry - Bodger Produced Chair, wearing Clothing that comes from Organically Grown Flax, that is using only Traditional Practices to create the Linen Cloth my Clothing will be produced from. I will compare the wearing of Such Fabric to the experience of Naturist Listening and share thoughts on which is the able to create the most attractive end sound. 

To keep my report on any findings effecting the end sound produced as accurate possible. I will train myself to not Blink, or maybe cheat and use Matchsticks. It will be a worthwhile investigation to learn how the shutting of ones eyes whilst listening, can be extremely detrimental to how the end produced sound is perceived.

Maybe somebody can contribute to assist with my selections that will enable my using an Audio System, that is 100% Produced from Natural Product. It seems vital such a condition is put in place to not be detrimental to the end sound being produced.

Ah forget offering any suggestions, I'm out of here, the whole idea, is seemingly to myself, a waste of my time. 

The Chalk Wall Decor, and Wood/Rug Flooring has proved plenty enough, with CD being quite acceptable if one feels a snooze is on the menu.