Dover, your information is correct. I was incorrect, regarding DC motors. But the potential noise issue with DD TTs is there regardless, because all motors can radiate EMI and also reflect EMI back on the AC power source, which is why it’s best to isolate the AC line from the rest of the system. As far as radiated EMI, any good DD turntable will have addressed that issue in its basic design, mentioned elsewhere. I tried to measure EMI at the platter surface for two of my DD TTs using a sensitive meter and got zero, but I suppose you could argue the meter was not sensitive enough. Practically speaking, there’s no audible noise with any of my 4 DDs. I haven’t owned a Decca cartridge in decades but those are particularly sensitive due to the odd grounding scheme and how it mated to ancillary equipment.
Moving Iron Adventures
I have been a user of the London (Decca) Reference for the last eleven years. It has been good enough that I have had no desire to replace it—none at all! It seems a bit unusual for an audiophile to acquire some piece of kit and then say "That’s it!" for eleven years! Perhaps some of my complacency was due to having nice Quad tube amps and electrostatic speakers. But then things changed for me...
Everything got upset with moving house. My phono stage refused to work. My electrostatic speaker started to click and arc. And amongst it all, as I switched in other components to keep the music flowing, I listened more carefully to everything, including my turntable. I became aware my beloved Reference might no longer deserve that title as it was not now what it had been. Off it went to the UK, just in time as John Wright retires very shortly, for a full rebuild.
So in the meantime, I started to reluctantly expend monies on alternatives. I may have been a physician, but I had to stop working when I discovered that leukemia was to define my remaining life. Now I have to live upon my savings, and must balance audio delight against other necessities and a probable shortened lifespan. Go ask your financial advisor how to do that—I don’t have one and never have liked to think about money.
First job was to educate myself about other moving iron options, and several were available. None looked anything like a Decca cartridge: they have cantilevers! So, I learned that there were quislings who would make an MM cartridge where the magnets were not on the cantilever, but nearby both the fixed coils and the ferromagnetic mass on the end of the cantilever.They called the result moving iron. This was rubbish to a Decca user, but I realised it could only make any sense—compared to a moving magnet—if the moving ferromagnetic mass could be a whole lot smaller than the magnetic mass of an MM cartridge in the same place. Rare earth magnets have come along and make MM cartridges far better than they could be with iron magnets. Now what if the strong rare earth magnet sits still inside the cartridge body, and a small, lightweight sliver of ferromagnetic material sits on the end of the cantilever, waving around in the fixed magnetic field of the rare earth magnets, and induces a current in the fixed coils also in the cartridge body as it does so? Welcome to Grado, Soundsmith and Nagaoka. They do work, and surprisingly quite well. But don’t get excited, as they don’t work as well as the old Decca design.
Wisely or not, I bought an example from each company. A Grado Statement 3, a Soundsmith Sussurro MkII, and a Nagaoka MP-500. I didn’t tell you above that the London Reference was not my first Decca: I had bought a London Jubilee, and used it for about two weeks before I told myself that it was so good I simply had to spend twice as much to see what its big brother—the Reference—could do. I was still working then and could do that kind of thing. So now I could compare the new purchases to the Jubilee, knowing the Reference outclassed the Jubilee very handily.
All comparisons were on an SME Model 10 turntable, with a Series V tonearm. I was, and still am, surprised by the results. The MP-500 took about 15 hours to run in and after that it changed little. It was very close to the sound of the Deccas, so much so that I felt I had to take rather dramatic steps. I found another SME 10 table, used, and with the M10 arm (akin to the 309) that SME sold it with originally. I intended to sit the MP-500 on that that tonearm and table and that would delay the inevitable end of my two London Decca cartridges when they were no longer repairable after John Wright’s retirement. It is lively, dynamic and full of toe-tapping goodness.
I’ll sidetrack myself, and try to say what I’m trying to achieve. After 11 years of the London Reference, what is it that makes me want more of the same? I can’t speak to soundstage and imaging: I only have one somewhat damaged ear and I have no directional sense of hearing. Quality of sound is it—the whole thing—for me. Sure, I like some bass, and I don’t remember what my last audiogram said about high notes. But I did spend twenty five years flying to Toronto three times a year to attend two operas on each trip. I know what live orchestral music sounds like to my wretched ear, and I want more of it at home. I heard the difference when the COC moved from the O’Keefe/Hummingbird Centre to their new purpose built home. I was there for the first Ring Cycle and I mourn Richard Bradshaw’s early demise as much as anyone. In my earlier life, I had attended the Festival Hall in London for concerts (though with much cheaper seats!) As for modern live music, I have less experience. Two Supertramp concerts in Halifax, NS, and I was involved in supplying most of the pot for the Watchfield Concert in Wiltshire in 1975, where Hawkwind failed to turn up as booked. Attendees needed a lot of consolation.... So what am I looking for, aurally? Without clever terminology, it is the unconscious desire to tap my feet to the music. The sense that it is live, rather than a recording. I can’t identify anything in terms of frequency or timbre, and it probably comes down to responsiveness and timing to convince my ear that I’m hearing it live. Even SACDs through an Ayre C5-xe don’t quite match that, even if, analytically, I can’t say why they fail. Like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart on obscenity, "I know it when I [hear] it."
But to get back to important things, when the other cartridges came along...
The Grado Statement 3 proved to be accurate, honest and utterly boring. Very good at not reproducing surface noise. Maybe another tonearm would let it show its worth. I have gone back to it a couple of times, but I still get bored without being able to put a finger on a particular fault. Even after using an SPL meter to make sure I was comparing it fairly, it couldn’t compete against the (now returned and rebuilt) Reference.
The Sussurro MkII initially disappointed me. Eventually I RTFM and connected its 0.47mV output as an MC cartridge and set the loading to 800Ω as recommended. Now it is close to being as good as the Nagaoka, but doesn’t quite match it. But, along the way...
Like many, I have some older cartridges stored away. The Benz Micro Ruby 3 turned out to be a competitor, but the Ortofon Kontrapunkt C actually came the closest to the Decca sound I was trying to simulate. This surprised me a great deal, as I had used it some 12 years ago before the Deccas, where I thought it was an overly detailed and rather etched sounding pickup. I’m probably a bit more experienced at setting the VTA now, and my phono stage is certainly a lot more capable than the one I was using then.
So what to do now? I have spent good money and can’t honestly sell my purchases on as "you might like it but I didn’t" items. I have decided to keep my options open, with two tonearm pods custom machined to allow two extra tonearms to play on the two SME 10 tables. I was going to use my collection of SME 309 headshells, but the price of the cheapest SME tonearm still sold without a table underneath it is prohibitive. ($4.2kCDN each for the M2-9, which is more than I paid for a Series V arm!) So they will have to have Rega RB330 arms, and I can sort out the HTA and VTA by moving the pods around, and up and down). Pretty obviously pride of place on the Series V will be given to the London Reference, with the Jubilee as backup when it wears out, and if no one can be found to re-tip it at that time. The M10 arm will have the Ortofon Kontrapunkt C on it, and while I had thought I might replace when needed with a Cadenza Black, I’m now thinking I’d do better to re-tip it. The two extra tonearms will house the lovely MP-500 (I already bought two spare styli as it is that good!) and the Soundsmith Sussurro MkII. My phono stage (Musical Fidelity NuVista Vinyl) lets me attach up to five cartridges and remembers their settings as MM, MC, capacitance loading, resistance loading, ±6dB amplification, rumble filter on/off. The Grado Statement 3 goes in the cupboard with my old Benz Micro Wood H2 and Ruby 3. Should I get lucky and my recent bone marrow transplant lasts longer than expected, one day the MP-500 will replace the worn out Reference and Jubilee on the Series V arm. I don’t think that will happen in my time, but these ideas might provide guidance to others!
Right now, I allow myself one LP a day via the Reference. Everything else is played on the second table, so that provides the majority of my music now. In a couple of months the tonearm pods will be here, and I shall have three other options, populated as described, to prolong the lifespan of the Reference.
Having heard the Sussurro MkII transformed by treating it as an MC and playing with the resistive loading, I had to do the same with the Grado Statement 3. This has an output of 1mV, which could be treated as MM or MC. I have used it as an MM, but my phono amp lets me do pretty much what I want, so...I mounted the Statement 3 on a 309 headshell and fitted it to the second SME table and aligned it with the Feickert (Baerwald). Set the VTF to 1.8g and the VTA as dead level. I like to use Elgar's Sea Pictures for the next bit, as Dame Janet Baker has a powerful contralto voice for the top end, and the tympani provide some deep bass behind her voice. So I listened to the first track, the Sea Slumber Song repeatedly while altering the resistive loading. I kept the volume comfortable with an SPL app, between 50-60dB. I have the options of 10, 25, 50, 100, 400, 800, 1200 and 47kΩ. Starting with 47k, it was rather thin with her voice a bit much for me. Coming down to 1.2k she was tamed a bit, and more so at 800Ω. I think 400 is the first loading that sounds like a real voice, and maybe I prefer the 100Ω loading. The tympani got a bit more prominent at first as I came down from 47k, but after that stayed much the same. Having done that I moved on to the next section of my torture test, conveniently on the other side of the same LP (EMI ASD655, Barbirolli, DuPré, Baker, LSO, Elgar Cello Conc and Sea Pictures). Not the world's finest audiophile LP, but the best I know of that expresses both music and sound in luscious detail). The cello is not only a wonderfully expressive instrument, but it produces some of the richest of natural timbres. If I describe the rosined horsehair bow drawn slowly over the Cats Go strings (Cats Go Down Alleys - C, G, D, A yes?) you can feel shivers down your spine as you imagine the horsehair grab and slip many times in the duration of each note. If you don't feel what I mean you should stop both reading and listening and go and watch football. |
Yap @lewm, Deccas could be a problem with some tables. The first time I heard a Decca---the Blue---was at the only high end dealer in San Jose in the early-70’s, who had tried it in the Thorens TD-125. Too much hum, so they put it on a Sony (don’t remember the model but it was pre-direct drive). Yet the next time I heard the Blue it was mounted on a prototype Audio Research arm which never made it into production (it looked like the 1950’s Grado arm) on Bill Johnson’s own TD-125. Sample-to-sample variation? No two Deccas sounded the same! |
Most all DD turntables use AC motors. Typically the motor itself is encased in a metal that shields. The platter itself usually enhances shielding. There is no hum problem. I’ve had 5 different DD turntables in my home system, used them with a wide variety of MM, MI, and MC cartridges. No hum ever. Some Decca cartridges used a common ground for both channels which made or makes them more likely to induce a hum in certain turntables of any drive type, depends on proximity of the motor and its EMI. At least that’s how I recall the Decca issue. This is in no way to say the Decca London is not excellent. It is. Wish I still had mine. |
A DD TT with an AC motor being rather awkward. Some people have tried shielding the motor with mu-metal. Oddly, I have never heard any hum with my Deccas, but they are of the newer type, with proper bodies and four pins. They don't seem to mind me connecting both ground leads either (though I do connect one to the phono and one to the pre-amp. I would make a guess that the higher output Deccas (5mV typical) with more windings on their coils, would be more sensitive than lower output MI designs. I never hear complaints of hum about Grado, Soundsmith or Nagaoka. |
I see some of what you are saying. What I am referring to is electrically induced (EMI) hum. And you addressed a possible cause by referring to the ’extra ground’ used in many cabling systems in phono. No doubt there is a preferred way for each situation. however, I tried working with that and it did not matter. Interestingly the hum increased a bit when the tonearm neared the center of the album. The TT motor was DC and so I discounted it as a source. Come to think of it, I have moved the TT since then and it would be interesting to hear any difference with that cartridge. I would readily do that if I had another tonearm for SOL TT, as it is incredibly simple for the uni-pivot design. |
The older Deccas often required some special voodoo to tame or obviate their hum. Some of it was related to the common ground of the three-pin versions, some because of the thin pressed metal shell. So trying various ground configurations and doing brave things like potting the innards with bees wak was tried. The Deccapod mount was made to tame the resonance too, as were some third party efforts to encase them in wood.The recent models have much less resonant shells, and have come from Mr Wright ready potted. |
Small point: Sound Lab panels are a single large sheet of Mylar that is sandwiched between a pair of egg crate grill-like hard plastic dividers, resulting in small rectangular divisions of the Mylar that are variously sized to spread out their respective resonant peaks. SL like to bias their panels at very high voltages compared to most other commercial ESLs, and possibly as a result they had problems with arcing for many years. The combination of high voltage and inadequate stator insulation were culprits. SL used to endorse having customers “kill” any of those individual rectangles that were arcing, by injecting silicone caulk across the space between the Mylar and the static where arcing was occurring. The affected Mylar would also develop holes, eventually. The whole problem was a nightmare for owners like me, until eventually after killing so many rectangles, you sent the whole panel back to the factory for total rebuild. About 10 or more years ago, they seem to have solved the insulation problem. My 845PXs , purchased back then, are doing fine. |
@dogberry , Mylar will shrink when heated with a heat gun. After final assembly Acoustat panels were run under an infrared heater to tighten the Mylar. If the speakers were not crossed to a subwoofer, with age the diaphragms would loosen a bit, and they could rap against the stators with loud bass or a bad warp. A heat gun fixes the problem. Jim Strickland, the brain behind Acoustat, discovered that by using a certain type of insulation on that stators you could prevent dangerous arching altogether. Roger West of Sound Labs uses a similar construct but smaller individual panel sizes. They never get lose enough to rattle even if you require them to make bass. In regards to cartridge design, it is the effective mass that matters, the distance of the mass from the fulcrum along with it's size. I have heard both the Strain Gauge and Hyperion. Peter spells his name with two Ns, Ledermann. The Strain Gauge immediately gets your attention with fast transients and a brightness that does not increase sibilance, so it is easily tolerated, and harder to identify. The Hyperion sounds rather boring on first listen. Turn up the volume to more realistic levels, and it becomes apparent that the Hyperion is the more accurate cartridge. It is also a fabulous tracker, the Strain Gauge is not. I could live with an Hyperion had I a phono stage that could mate with it. I did have The Voice for about 1 year. It is the most accurate high output cartridge I have ever heard, and a terrific value matching cartridges twice the price. The ART 1000 is a scary design. My instinct, right or wrong, tells me to steer clear.
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Markus, This is what I wrote about it:
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@dogberry - You said: "I have discovered how to take apart my 2905 speakers and keep the failing panels alive a bit longer with hot glue." Really? I'd love to learn more about what you're doing. I have a pair of 2805s that have been rebuilt. 98% of the time they sound superb. But there are some frequencies that cause buzzing. I expect that one day they will require another service but if there's a way to prolong their life with hot glue, I'd love to hear about it. Your comment was the first reference I've ever read about this... Thanks, Markus the (used to be) Naimnut |
I understand the Statement 3 belonged to the lower tier of Grado cartridges, but they felt it was sounding good enough to be promoted to the Lineage series along with the Epoch 3 and the Aeon 3. I'm very pleased to hear that the Epoch 3 does so much for you, and I assume it is very different to the Statement 3. There really isn't anything wrong with the Statement 3, if you value neutrality above all else. But I don't hear any excitement in the music. Perhaps I'm accustomed to a highly corrupted sound from the Deccas, and I interpret that as excitement. Who knows? But that's what I'm looking to find again. |
I was at first super interested in the Decca London Reference. But finding it no longer available, I turned to the Grado Epoch3. I have been using it now for a couple of months. It blew away my Lyra Atlas SL. The Lyra is sold. And the Epoch3 is now my destination cartridge. The Statement3 Grado is a different world from the Epoch. I can’t say that it blows away the Decca, but comparing it to the similarly priced Lyra says a lot about the SQ.
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I really like Benzes a lot too (and the current line with Zebra and Ebony woods is better than the prior lineup with Bruyere wood like Ruby 3), but they don't have quite as "juicy" a sound as a Kontra C or a Koetsu. The Ruby and LPS models are also harder to match to phono stages (versus the lower iron-cross models), as they don't mix super well with SUTs in my experience. But I do quite enjoy the Zebrawood L and Ebony L in my collection too :) |
Thank you for your kind thoughts! It's hard to remember now exactly why I bought the Kontrapunkt C. I had gone from a Shure V15VxMR on a Rega P3, to the SME 10 initially with an M10 arm, then a Series V arm, then a Benz Micro Wood H2 and then the Ruby 3. Why was I unhappy with the Ruby 3? I suspect I was seduced by enthusiastic reviews, and simply got lucky that the reviews, on this occasion, were telling the truth. At that time though, I remember regarding the Kontrapunkt C as being just a bit over-detailed, and perhaps that was just a comparison to the admittedly lush Ruby 3. It seemed to me then as if it were a bit of a guilty pleasure, maybe making my records sound like the CDs that had replaced vinyl for me for around ten years, and upon which I had spent rather silly amounts of money chasing decent sound, when all the time it was under my nose in all the LPs I never threw away. I was using an all Quad tube system then, along with their electrostatic speakers. I still do, although the 24p phono stage has been swapped out for the NuVista Vinyl. I have no desire to change anything there: it may not be perfect but after all these years it makes the sound I regard as 'right'. I have discovered how to take apart my 2905 speakers and keep the failing panels alive a bit longer with hot glue. It's a relief on one hand to have a system that I feel content to live with for as long as I can, but on the other hand it is a responsibility to maintain those parts like cartridges and speaker panels that wear out. Listening again to the Ruby 3 recently, I was pleased to find it competitive to the Deccas. Not as close as the Ortofon, but nonetheless, pretty good. I haven't seen fit yet to dig out the Wood H2, but maybe I shall once I have carts on the Rega RB330 arms and have 309 headshells to spare. Just for fun. It was a high output MC, and I have no reason to think it would be better than the Ruby 3 that replaced it, but you never know! To get a bit fanciful, I see a consistent thread in the cartridges I like. Cutting the mass that has to be moved by the stylus/groove engine right down to the bone. The Deccas do it by taking the signal from the armature just above the stylus. (I've never heard one, but I dream about the old Ikeda MC designs that did the same.) The current MI designs have a cantilever but claim to have as little mass on the proximal end as possible. Lederman gets quite poetic describing that, and I think he is right in principal, but not all the way there in execution. I haven't heard a Hyperion, though. Now to take that as far as we can, there are new cartridge technologies that look promising: the strain gauge, where the proximal end of the cantilever doesn't have to move, just press against the gauge, and the the DS optical system that needs no mass on the cantilever other than wafers that block more or less light from internal LEDs in the body. Finally, with a nod to those old Ikedas, there's the AT ART1000 with the coils mounted on the cantilever right next to the stylus (like an old Neuman DST 62). I'd give my eye teeth to have the chance to compare those three in my system. For good or ill, it seems my canines are safe! |
Sorry to hear about your health issues; I truly hope everything starts turning in your favor! I know the Kontra C - it’s a super fun sound with sweet warm midrange, rich bass response, sparkling treble, and just generally tons of PRaT. It has a good helping of a higher-end MC’s detail and refinement, but with heaps of fun factor too. It has an output of almost 0.5mV, and is an easygoing partner with almost any decent MC stage. As I said before, I’m sorry I sold mine. I did not find the higher end Ortofon MC’s to be in this vein. They will be progressively more refined & detailed, but also drier, and quite frankly less fun. I’ve owned Jubilee MC (Cadenza Black’s predecessor), Cadenza Bronze (Kontra C’s successor), Windfeld MC, Windfeld Ti, and A90. Of these, the Cadenza Bronze is quite similar to Kontra C (being its successor), but even here (going on memory) it seems to lack a little of the C’s fun factor. Perhaps I prefer the C’s silver wire (gold plated copper on Cadenza Bronze), and perhaps the plastic inner chassis (versus aluminum for Cadenza) wasn’t all bad. The Jubilee didn’t thrill me at all. The Windfelds are very technical, and that can be thrilling, but their voicing is more matter-of-fact dry. No warmth in the midrange. Now, the A90 I like! That seems to better marry some (not all) of the fun & warm beautiful voice of Kontra C with technicalities (and beyond) of Windfeld. So in short, I would probably stick with the Kontra C for Ortofons - or maybe try out an A90 if a good one comes up for sale. If you retip the Kontra C you should keep the cantilever (tapered/conical aluminum), as I think that’s a big part of its sound. It uses a Fritz Gyger "FG80" stylus. In moving on from Kontra C, I eventually found true love with Koetsu cartridges. Paired with a good SUT, they have even more of a brilliant "technicolor" sound than the Kontra C. Plus better technicalities too. But the Kontra C was just a rockin’ cart for the money! Wish it were still in production. |
It probably doesn't belong here, but my involvement in the weed thing was entirely accidental (yes, your Honour, it was an accident, I swear...) A funny story and one I'm happy to relate elsewhere. Believe it or not, I have never touched the stuff! It's legal here now, and I suppose I may end up with a good excuse if there has to be more chemo. I was only 17 at the time and I can tell you I was much, much more interested in the fact there were naked women walking around the disused airfield where it took place that hot summer. We were told Hawkwind would be arriving by helicopter, but I don't even know if they were actually booked, or whether the idiots organising (to be generous) the whole affair were just using the name to attract visitors. If I could buy another Reference it would solve a lot of problems. But there's none to be had, and it probably won't hurt me to have some variety in the way my vinyl plays. |
I’m hoping against hope that someone steps in to fill John Wright’s shoes. There IS no replacement for the London Reference! Or the Jubilee, or even the Super Gold. If I were you @dogberry, I would just buy a couple/few more London’s, enough to last you whatever time you think you have left. I’m planning on doing exactly that myself. |
@dogberry Super post. Had to laugh out loud at the Hawkwind no-show. They were one of my teen favorites with the consequent accumulation of twenty plus albums including many original gatefolds. Joe Banks book is well worth a read. Feel well, man. |
