Mono Cartridge Question

Get a mono cart! 

If you like classical you can double your mono collection for very small money :)

I recently had this same endeavor in mind for a second TT that entered my system.  Originally looked at the Ortofon Cadenza but it did not get along with my DSA Phono2 being a dual mono phono preamp design. Set up ground loops that I could not eliminate. It went away and just received the Miyajima Zero which has not yet been mounted.  I have listened to both the Cadenza and the Zero in other systems and found each to have excellent possibilities.  Discuss with your dealer the interaction of the cartridges with the design of your preamp.

No dealer options available out here in the boonies!

The distributor has already replied to me on this Sunday night that he can give a discount for Black Friday. Evidently there is a massive markup he is willing to decrease somewhat. I have asked how much the discount would be.

Any info on JW’s successor?

EDIT:

http://www.london-cartridges.co.uk/

sure love both my Miyajima Infinity Mono’s; the 0.7mil stylus and 1.0mil stylus models. my friend Audiogon member jazdoc owns the Zero and loves it. i’ve heard it in his system many times and it always delivers.

get the mono cartridge. it takes things further with mono pressings.

I like both mono and stereo recordings, to be sure, but hearing a great mono record on a good system does make one wonder how far we have come ,;)

Btw Tedeska Mono is in same price range as Miyajima Infinity, hand made for you :)

I have 1mil Miyayima Zero and it is amazing! So much better than stero carrridges on mono.

Mono cartridges simply work better on mono records.  Quieter, more presence.  The Miyajima is a true mono and would be the best choice of those you are considering.

All of you guys who extoll the virtues of using a mono cartridge on a mono LP, do you have a mono switch on your linestage?  And if so, do you hear a difference between the mono switch used with a stereo cartridge vs a mono cartridge?  My opinion is I get a large fraction of the benefit by just using a mono switch, and the trade-off with a mono cartridge is that the cartridge must compete against your stereo cartridge for overall SQ.  Thus with an inferior mono cartridge, you might taking two steps forward and one step backward.  (Or something like that.)

I may be in error here, but my understanding is that mono cartridges on mono records tend to reproduce far less surface noise. If this is because surface noise results from vertical movements of the stylus, it makes sense as the vertical movements are ignored. IF any of that is true, there is then the complication that a cartridge for modern mono recordings must have some vertical compliance so as to avoid damage to a stereo record played inadvertently. This may be why I see some mono cartridges (eg from AT) labelled as dual moving coil cartridges. I assume the innards are the same as in stereo versions, but the coils are connected to sum the output to both channels. Now if we have the 45° arrangement of stereo coils, but wired to output mono, surely that just does the same job as a mono switch on the pre-amp?

Which is why I asked the question. The difference between using a mono cartridge vs a mono switch is that in the first case the mono signal is derived before loading, RIAA correction, and amplification. Whereas using a mono switch on a linestage operates after those processes. Could make a difference.

Lewm,

I have owned many preamps with mono switches and of course many cartridges, both mono and stereo over the years.  In my experience a mono cartridge always sounds better.  With that said, a mono switch used with a high grade stereo cartridge should beat a cheap mono cartridge.  But it doesn't.  I first discovered this years ago comparing Shure M44 mono vs. Shure V15 Type II (McIntosh C28 at that time). I have a not overly expensive AT33 Mono today that outperforms all of my best stereo cartridges including a favorite Experion on mono records.  This still astounds me.  But invariably mono cartridges are quieter and have greater presence.  And higher end mono cartridges are just flat awesome. 

I respect your opinion, because you’ve tried it both ways.

This is good information. It's beginning to look like the question is whether a single coil (assuming that is how the Miyajima Zero works) is so much better than the 'neutered' stereo type like an AT33-Mono. The former is about six times more expensive.

for the straight skinny on mono pressings and cartridges; scroll down to the bottom on this website; it’s the best explanation of the benefits of mono i have seen. based on the facts. and why i have two 'true' mono cartridges; one with a 1.0mil stylus, and one with a 0.7mil stylus.

https://www.ortofon.com/hifi/cartridges-ranges/true-mono/

Yes, I read the Ortofon page before. I was confused by this remark on the Cadenza MC Mono (one of the "True Mono" cartridges):

The coils are made from 6NX (99.9999 %) pure silver wire. An improved winding process on the armature allows a better channel balance.

"Coils"? Is it just lifted from the stereo Cadenza blurb, which has the same wording for the Red and Blue models? Or do they put two coils on the cantilever as usual but only have fixed magnets arranged to pick up lateral movement only? This isn't, or shouldn't, be complicated, but it is hard to find proper information.

Ortofon mono cartridges are usually stereo cartridges where the two channels are internally bridged, but their verbiage is typically ambiguous enough to allow the reader to believe the cartridge is true mono. So “coils” (plural) is probably accurate.

Given my love of Decca cartridges, and a little knowledge of the way their coils are arranged around the armature, it seems to me it would be relatively simple to re-wire one so that only the coil responsible for lateral movement gets fed into both channels. I may have to ask about a mono conversion of my spare Jubilee.

Later: I just sent an enquiry to the new owner of the London Decca name, and CC’d it to John Wright as he is continuing to provide technical and training support.

I am sure one can convert a Jubilee to mono, if its internal works are like those of the London.

My 1 mil Zero is so much better than the mono switch with stereo cartridges costing 3-5 times the Zero. I have two arms and can switch back and forth while the same record is playing. No comparison! Granted these are with mono albums from the 50-60's where the 1 mil diamond is correct. I cannot comment on new/newer mono albums.

No reply from the new owners of the London Decca name and business. Also enquired of Steve Leung (doesn't think it can be done) and Peter Ledermann (no reply yet).

Similar to what Mike was recommending, one issue seldom mentioned is stylus tip size.  That may come down to the mono records you intend to play.  Are they original monos from the '50s and early '60s, or reissues produced within the past 20 years?

Early monos were cut with a larger tip, 0.7 to 1.0 mil for LPs.  Nearly all mono reissues were made with stereo cutter heads with smaller size. I don't believe few if any mono cutter heads survive.  

I assume from this mono reissues may be OK with current stereo cartridges, although a mono switch (per Lew) may still help sonics.  But with original mono releases a mono cartridge with appropriate tip size should optimize the enjoyment.

I'll be curious to hear where you land on this question, dogberry. I've been wrestling with the same question, and just purchased a mono cartridge to begin my investigations. I'll be happy to report findings if anyone is interested.

I purchased a zyx mono cartridge. zyx options weren't necessarily on my radar but I got a good deal on the cartridge bundled with a tonearm. The zyx carts are all 1.0 mil, spherical stylus. I'm good with that as an option for now. I have plenty of old mono classical records that I suspect will be best served with the 1.0 mil option. For modern mono reissues, I'll try the mono cartridge and my stereo cartridge to see which I prefer.

None of my phono preamps have a mono switch. And the comparison between the mono and stereo carts won't exactly be scientific - they will be on slightly different tonearms and the stereo cart is from a different maker altogether. Still. Fun is about to happen.

Peter replied and I'm waiting for him to call for a discussion. I may be getting somewhere!

Chris

Well Peter said I'm crazy. Also a few things about Deccas in general "that I wouldn't say out loud in public." He's not a fan.

All I can do at this point is to hope that londondecca.com eventually get back to me.

"Peter" is Peter Ledermann?

Correct.

Hmm. There must be life at londondecca,com. The 'Service' button now opens a web message form rather than an e-mail link to service@londondecca.com.

So I filled it in. Also asked the old UK distributor at Presence Audio if he knows what's going on.

I have a London Decca Maroon which I ordered from John Wright as a mono cartridge and on most mono discs it beats my stereo cartridge and mono switch despite the latter’s Replicant 100 stylus and much more sophisticated phono stage, however, I have a few mono records where it doesn’t, I think those are the older wide groove LPs and the Replicant is just a better fit in the groove.

It’s reputed to be a simple matter to convert a Decca to mono but I don’t know the details.

 Beware a true mono cartridge on a stereo LP, you want some vertical compliance. 

Isn’t that just the truth - we need some vertical compliance in case a stereo disk ends up under the wrong tonearm, but we don’t want any signal resulting from the vertical compliance to be fed up the chain.

Peter Ledermann did sort out something for me (honestly, he was very informative and able to answer some questions for me in ways that make sense, even if I strongly disagree with his opinions about Deccas). The issue of "true mono" pickups having dual coils: I assumed they were exactly like a stereo version, but the coils would be wired so as to send the combined output to both channels. Quite wrong, said he, and he should know. All the same components as a stereo version can be used, but the cantilever/magnets are mounted 45° away from the stereo version. Now it becomes possible to take the signal from the coil/magnet sensing horizontal movement and send it to both output pins. The other coil/magnet pair, that now senses vertical movement isn’t even connected. It shouldn’t even be there, but it is cheaper to make one cantilever with two coils on it, and presumably then mount the cantilever/magnets in the appropriate orientation for mono or stereo as desired.

This quiets my fears about pickups like an AT33 Mono or the Ortofon Cadenza Mono (both of which claim "true mono" status), which announce that they have dual coils etc. I’ll wait a week and see if either londondecca.com or Brian at Presence Audio give me a result. If not, I’ll have to choose between the AT and the Cadenza. The Ortofon is three times the price, but I do love it’s great uncle, the Kontrapunkt C. A Miyajima Zero would be twice the price of the Cadenza Mono, and I can’t justify that. I still think a mono conversion of the Jubilee should be child’s play for a tech used to Deccas, and would likely be better than any of the others. But, "You can’t always get what you want" etc...

Questions remain. VAS offer mono conversion of stereo cartridges. Do they just rewire them ("untrue mono"?) or do they rotate the innards such that one coil/magnet reads only lateral movement? I don’t know, but I wish these things were made plain for prospective customers. P. Ledermann says it isn’t worthwhile in terms of price to try to convert any of his pickups to mono, and one should buy one built as mono.

I can't answer all of the questions raised here, but I can add some light at least.  First let me describe my mono vs. stereo cartridges a bit further.  I have a VAS Mono MC, .07 mil elliptical diamond on aluminum cantilever and the brother in stereo.   Next an Ortofon 2M Black and 2M Mono SE, MM, both Shibata on aluminum cantilevers.  Audio Technica AT33 Mono (2), one is 0.07 mil and one is 1.0 mil.   Here is what I have learned.  Use 0.07 mil styli on modern records, reissues etc., but not on old monos as they sound awful.  Conversely, the 1.0 mil stylus doesn't track on modern records.  So if you have a mix of old and new mono records you will need one stylus of each size.  That is where moving magnet cartridges with user replaceable stylii can be handy.  As I have already said a mono cartridge sounds best on a mono record.  But of course the better the cartridge the better the sound.

Next, If you have a record that you are not sure is mono or stereo, start by playing it with a stereo cartridge.  If the record is mono, the image will be centered between the two speakers.  Switching to a mono cartridge will generally make the record quieter and more lively.  For records that were "rechanneled for stereo" or some such nonsense, that means they are full of reverb and generally sound better if played with a mono cartridge.

The problem is: Define "old mono" vs "new mono".  Definition to be used in deciding whether to use the 0.7mil stylus vs a 1.0mil stylus.  I have read many different opinions on that score, and it may vary by label as well as year of manufacture.

Hi Lewm,

Definitions can get tricky.  What I do is clean it and then play the damn record.  If not sure, I play the record with a stereo cartridge first.  That is always going to determine if it is mono or stereo.  Next, I try a 0.07 mil mono.  If it is really noisy, then I try a 1.0 mil mono.  Usually that process works.  If none of those works, the record is donated to a local charity that sells used records.  But that is very rare. 

My policy is if the performance is old enough to have been recorded in mono, and if neither the jacket nor the label proclaim it’s stereo, then I flip the mono switch. But that doesn’t answer my own question. However as a result I’m playing all mono LPs with modern stereo styli, and I don’t notice any problem related to groove width. It may be that I own very few mono LPs that are old enough to require 1.0mil.

@lewm 

 It may be that I own very few mono LPs that are old enough to require 1.0mil.

The 1.0 mil for the early monos assumes a conical profile and many of the advanced profiles play the early mono's perfectly.

dave

@intactaudio in your experience would you say modern profiles play mono better? 

@solypsa 

absolutely....  as long as the cartridge has vertical compliance I'll take an advanced profile every time.

dave

I know I knew that at some point.  Thanks, Dave.

Ortofon give the tip diameters of their mono cartridges with spherical tips as either 18μm, 25μm and 65μm for late mono, early mono and 78s respectively. I presume mil is US for thousandth of an inch. That would be called thou’ in the UK and possibly the rest of Europe where they’ve heard of an inch but mil is rather confusingly used for millimetres here.
 

Of the stereo cartridges I’ve used on mono disks the Proteus Ogura PA wasn’t very happy, the microridge of a Dynavector 17D3 nearly as bad but the Replicant 100 and Gyger S felt at home, barring the slight loss from the mono button, on both late and early mono LPs. The 18μm spherical on my Decca with a £350 phono stage had the replicant on my stereo SPU Royal N with an £8k phonostage beaten on late monos but was hopeless on early ones.

Lots of good advice here. My understanding is that a true mono cartridge can have two coils but that each coil is designed as an independent mono coil, one for the left channel and one for the right channel.

There are many cartridges who entered the mono cartridges market in the past twenty or so years like Miyajima and Hana but other designers have been offering mono designs for decades. DECCA/London, Ortofon SPU and EMT have been at it for a very long time.

Personally I’m still modifying my Thorens TD 160 and it is a dedicated mono table with an AT 33 Anniversary mono cartridge. After upgrading my tonearm, I’ll probably replace my AT 33 with an EMT mono.

So I recommend at least looking at the EMT. It is considered as being in the same league as the Miyajima Zero but it costs a bit less.

Also, you may benefit from reading an older post of mine regarding mono cartridges. Jonathan Carr shared some his insights about his Lyra mono designs.

Finally, the stylus size and the groove width is a very real thing. I can hear the differences myself though it isn’t drastic. Hana offers a shibata stylus on their mono cartridge for those who play both micro groove and stereo lathe cut mono pressings.

I find myself running out of patience with the new owners of the London Decca brand. Five weeks ago they promised to call their tech and ask if he knew how JW wired the cartridges for mono. Ten days ago I asked again if anything had been heard. Nothing since. So today:

Repeat send: still nothing? I don't want to be a pain. If the answer is no, please tell me and I'll run out and buy a mono cartridge.

 

Just let me know, and I'll still wish you well and be in touch next time my Reference or Jubilee needs a rebuild!

 

Chris

I have got to agree with Dave @intactaudio. I think a conical stylus is simply not appropriate for playing back ANY groove cut by a cutting stylus made in the last 75 years (and perhaps more). If the playback stylus is not a facsimile of the cutting stylus - or if it is misaligned - it will NOT take the same path through the groove as the path used to cut the groove in the first place.

This is NOT to say a conical stylus won’t sound good! I am only saying you are giving up information in the groove and adding distortion (including, but not limited to, some second order harmonic which could be pleasing, but certainly not accurate.)

I posted an animation on our website to show how we simulated in finite element analysis software a 25um conical stylus tracing a 10kHz groove at 60mm playing radius. You can clearly see the vertical excursion of the stylus on the right side. The left side shows that the basins of the undulations don’t even get touched by the stylus. The stylus kind of skips from peak to peak. This happens to a lesser degree all across the record surface and certainly at lower frequencies than 10kHz. We choose a high frequency for this animation so it would be easy to visualize. If this were a mis-aligned fine line contact stylus, it would have even MORE vertical excursion (in a perfectly horizontally modulated groove, mind you) but it would at least reach down into the basins all the way.

Now, if you have a mono cartridge with a conical stylus and that cartridge does NOT allow vertical freedom of the cantilever, what do you think is happening to your grooves over time??? Not good, IMO. Dave may have already alluded to this issue.

By the way, @intactaudio, your silvered auto-formers are unbelievably excellent. I’ve turned many people on to them! I’ll use nothing else!

Cheers,

J.R. Boisclair

@wallytools 

Hey JR... I agree 100%...  there is no chance of a conical tracing a purely lateral cut groove without adding a vertical component to the movement.  IF there is no vertical compliance something has got to give and it ain't going to be the diamond in the short term.  Many people who have moved from a conical to an advanced profile have noticed that many of their noisy original Blue Notes magically have a new lease on life.   

dave

The AT 33 mono has a 0.65 conical stylus with vertical compliance which is why anyone can play a stereo record with this mono cartridge. I had a Grado mono with elliptical stylus and without vertical compliance and it destroyed any stereo record in came into contact with.

@goofyfoot 

playing a stereo record with a "no vertical compliance"  mono cart does indeed tend to end badly.  It is important to understand why this is the case.  In a stereo record, the information common to both channels is cut in the lateral plane and the information unique to each channel (stereo) is cut in the vertical plane.  Playing this back with a generator with coils oriented at 45° to the record surface presents the complete stereo image.  It is the vertical (stereo) info that takes the hit when played with mono cartridge with no vertical compliance.  

As JR has pointed out playing a high frequency mono signal with a conical profile also creates a vertical component so the same thing happens but to a lesser degree.  The results of this are not as dramatic as the results of your mono Grado on a stereo cut but the effect still happens.  Over time, this is not a great way to treat your precious early original mono recordings.

The case of your grado having an elliptical profile  (or any other advanced profile) does not make things instantly better.  The problem here is not the shape of the profile but the lack of vertical compliance.    I actually believe that if not properly aligned, once the advanced profile is introduced to a situation with no vertical compliance, things can be even more damaging than a conical even on mono cut records.

dave

@intactaudio So what's the antidote?

No mystery about it, if you use a mono cartridge with no vertical compliance you have to be careful to never set it on a stereo record. Or, you can use a stereo design made in a mono version (hopefully with the magnets mounted 45° away from usual as described above in my chat with Peter Ledermann, rather than simply strapped coils to sum both channels) and it will have the vertical compliance so that a mistake will do no harm. Those are the choices.

@dogberry I’m just skeptical about the idea that using a certain mono cartridge on mono records will damage the mono record. I appreciate everyone’s views and experiences but I’d make the radical assumption that many cartridge designers would not share this opinion. And while accepting that some cartridge designers would agree with the above opinion, a discourse should happen between those designers for and those designers against. My reasoning is that although certain theoretical principles are considered absolute, there is still a possibility that certain variables might offer a work around.

@goofyfoot 

maybe damage is not the proper term.... will you accept prematurely wear as an acceptable alternative?