We see people struggling with what to upgrade next, or where to direct their attention if everything seems to be working fairly well. I'm probably a bit more inclined to give more importance to sources and less to speakers than most people, but in general I like to look at which component is the 'rate-limiting factor' which one holds back the rest and then concentrate on improving that.
But to look specifically at vinyl reproduction, I have the strong impression that out of the four main components, they can be ordered in importance of potential effect on sound like this:
Cartridge
Phono stage
Tonearm
Turntable
I'm sure other people would list those four in a different order. How would you rank them and why?
Well I'm of the opinion that the phono stage can make more difference than the tonearm. I'm not going beyond the analog-only chain here, so pre-amp, power amp and speakers are out of consideration.
Perhaps I should have thought of a better way of phrasing my question, or maybe reduced it to two-way comparisons (TT or tonearm, cartridge or phono stage, and arranged successive comparisons until I had an aggregate answer).
The devil is in the details like "less variation between reasonably decent phono stages". Reasonably decent? If I had the means I could probably assemble a dozen $5000 phono stages and I bet you wouldn't say they were all reasonably decent - you'd quickly say which you liked the most and why. So we cannot pretend that all phono stages are so alike as to make nearly no difference. Perhaps the best way to state my position is that cartridges' sound ouputs vary more than tonearms' sound outputs vary and so on.
There you go @dogberry, The one thing that can f-ck up a cartridge more than anything else is a bad tonearm. I think there would be less variation between reasonably decent phono stages. However I also believe the most important part of the chain is the Speaker/Room. There can be a vast difference even between set ups that could be considered reasonably high performance.
No doubt I ought not say it, but I would rather you analysed (UK English) or analyzed (American English) the thread. If you want to analize anything, please do it in your own time and in privacy with consenting adults.
But to address the meaning of your comment:
which analog audio link could damage the more the cartridge signal?
Yes, this is a valid question, but it makes a presupposition, which is that the signal from the cartridge is sacrosanct and can only be damaged downstream. I am not suggesting that signal can be improved downstream, which is nonsense. Maybe 'harm reduction' at the very best. Let us assume the TT does its best, as does the tonearm. Then the signal comes out of the cartridge as pure as it can be from those three items working at their peak. Only the phono stage can screw things up after that (yes, so can everything else downstream, but that is out of our remit here).
My suggestion is that the quality of that signal from the cartridge is the most important thing in the chain of reproduction, all other things being equal, ie you don't substitute a rotten tonearm etc.
Dear @mijostyn : Thank's. We can analize the thread issue asking:
which analog audio link could damage the more the cartridge signal? but this could be even more controversial between phono stage and tonearm. but been tonearm/cartridge a unity then this lets all to the phono stage as the " weak link " or more important item.
No argument from me @rauliruegas. There are several turntables of modest cost that can handle any cartridge on the market as long as the tonearm is well designed. Two that come to mind are the Rega RP10 and the Thorens TD 1600. They are not ultimate turntables but certainly 90% of the way there and I can not think of a better value.
Dear @dogberry and gentlemans :Could be good that all of us make an " excersice " asking our self a hypothetical question:
All of us already sold the only one cartridge we owned and now we need to look for a new and better cartridge, so we have several choices about but before we can pull the trigger at least we have to make our self 3-4 questions to be sure the choosed cartridge will be " happy " in each one audio system. Questions for our self in no order:
the choosed cartridge will be a good match with the owned tonearm? no alignment issues in between ?. Btw, I’m with @mijostyn : the tonearm/cartridge is a UNITY.
In the other side we have to ask:
has my phono stage enough clean gain to handle the cartridge? has my phono stage a wide overload range?
I think we don’t need to ask about the TT because the cartridge choice depends mainly on the tonearm/phono stage but not on the TT.
If one of those question has a negative answer then we have to think in a new cartridge choice or in a new tonearm/phono stage.
Cartridge depends 100% of those two audfio system links for that cartridge shows at its best..
For me those will be my priorities .. What do you think, which is yours?
😁 We're all different and I'm pretty tolerant of neurodiversity, which tends to come into play on audio forums. But even I, broad-minded as I am, don't want to look in the basements belonging to any of you. I don't even like looking in my own.
@dogberry Stated "or where to direct their attention if everything seems to be working fairly well."
@needfreestuffin a very "non-prolix" response has summarised very much of what has been said in earlier posts.
To get to the optimal, all Interfaces are requiring attention.
It is the how much attention that is given, that separates the assembly as being Only Capable or Bordering on Optimised and Quite Capable.
For creating the Interface between a Assembly of Parts it is not strange or uncommon, to see where quite experienced individuals, that are sure in their knowing limitations in knowledge are present, and are willing to call on the Services of Skilled Technicians who set up the Analogue Front End or Invest In/ Hire a Computer Software Program to assist with the task of Setting Up.
Set Up Services or Software and those that are with acquired skills from a time served experience, do not focus on one part only within the assembly, the marriage of all parts is the focus .
Ah. I shall, briefly, fantasise about our two most prolix members having their own subforum, in which they can drown each other in words.
Unfortunately, this won't help clarify my question much. I'm content with my view, but I'm fascinated that other views exist, some of them ordering the parts in the exact opposite of my ranking. There really isn't a right answer, except theoretically, because the weakest link in anyone's chain will always demand attention.
I have absolutely 0 contributions here dude, i am here to learn. I will skip your comments if you don't mind, way too sophisticated for my pea brain....
A individual who I am in close contact with, has a Design for a Tonearm and Phonostage, which has steadily produced others through impression made to have adopted the Design and replace other owned equipment, as the result.
Through their duration of producing the Tonearm and more recently the Phon', the individual has changed Speaker Models on Three Occasions, as the Speakers in use on Two Occasions, even though quite capable, have not been able to present all that is on offer from the Designs being put into use.
It is also quite interesting that on other forums where there is a occasional discussion about this individuals work, that some who post that have adopted the Designs, have also made it known it has taken a exchange of Speaker to fully realise what they have bought into.
The Speaker is way up in the ranking as a Tool of Importance. It is certainly beneficial as an indicator that there is an optimisation of the unification of a Mechanical, Geometric and Electronic interaction at the Front End is in place.
The Speaker is the Tool that enables the audible experience to be encountered, all that occurs prior to the Speaker carrying out its role, is just a preparation for the Speaker to produce Sound and enable a Judgement of the Quality of the Sound being produced.
The more unadulterated and correct the Sound seems to an individual, the easier it is for the individual to make a subjective assessment of what they believe is a contributing factor from upstream to the impression being made.
As a HiFi enthusiast, I am a listener of a recorded medium produced to become sound, I am not a observer of a selected assembly of parts functioning.
As a individual wanting to listen, knowing there are disciplines required to optimise the function of the assembly of parts to get a improved sound is beneficial. Practicing the disciplines to create a optimised function and adopting parts to improve the optimisation is also undoubtedly beneficial.
There is no point having the ideal tools in a kit, and then only conceal their real capabilities, as one does not know how to use them and extract their full potential.
Even worse if one Tool is believed to be the only Tool required.
In my opinion table is the most important then arm, phono, cartridge.if you put lesser value cartridge in the best turntable you will be amazed how it bring out the sound compare to better cartridge in lesser value table.
But only experience in tables that comes with their own arm.
Putting the Quality of the Vinyl LP as a Recorded onto Material to one side, and focusing on the tools required for the extraction of the recorded media, through tracking the Groove.
The Analogue Source is quite easy to be seen as a complex chain of interfaces, it is a unification of a Mechanical, Geometric and Electronic interaction, where each individual element is requiring to achieve a certain level of precision to achieve a replay that would seem to be with a tolerable audible end product as the result.
Attempting to solely work with any one of the Three Critical Interfaces, will bring a change, and in certain cases a betterment can be detected almost immediately, if a particular discipline is accurately imparted.
There is a lot of trust to be placed in the parts attained to produce the entirety of the Set Up that will allow for a replay to take place, and the replay being produced in the eyes of some may only be referred to as being capable.
To achieve more than Capable is a intent that many carry, and the precision needed to be used, to attain what one would describe as their ideal, is commonly seen as a pursuit of a particular element and not the careful optimisation of the unification of all parts dependent on each other.
Hence, threads looking to learn about which single item is most beneficial arise.
Within all the above, there are compromises that some are willing to accept, as the readily available convenience to experience a wider variety parts that are a Critical Interface can be a attraction.
What ever goes on from the Stylus to the Speaker Cross Over is not audible, it is a a methodology to transfer a Electrical Signal that will then be processed at a Speakers Cross Over to create a Audible Sound.
With that in mind, it is quite important to have faith that the Speaker is delivering a Sound that does not interfere detrimentally with the Signal being processed at the Front End.
I am in the cartridge - phono stage camp, for now. But it vastly depends on the entire chain, with low-end bookshelf speakers, I wouldn't invest in a phono stage.
And clean those LPs, that makes a huge difference!
1 Turntable - nothing further down the chain can fix any speed and resonance issues here. In fact they'll only make them more obvious.
2 Arm - once again structural/resonance issues will make the job of the cartridge much much more difficult.
3 Phono Stage - very few amps have good phono stages built in. Some don't have any.
4 Cartridge - even a budget AT cart can give you very good results in a decent deck.
Besides they will wear out fairly quickly, are far too easily damaged, and are often a pain in the butt to change over and align properly.
It goes without saying that turntable siting is also very crucial if you want to make life easier for your turntable.
A lower performance turntable optimally sited will more than match a better one that is not in the same way a budget Ford will run better on a new road than a Tesla on a bumpy one.
The quantum world that turntables operate in is not readily visible to the naked eye or one that can be felt by human touch.
Dear @dogberry : " which of the four components has the most effect on final sound... "
It's obvious that a change in the transducer ( cartridge/speaker ) has " the most effect " but what I posted is more about quality level more than just sounds different.
You can have 2 same model cartridges that will sounds alike when in reality no two same model cartridges sounds exactly the same, always exist very tiny differences and be differences thaT YOU ONLY CAN BE AWARE AND DISCERN ON IT IF YOU OWN THE " RIGTH " HIGH RESOLUTION PHONO STAGE AND THE MATCHED TONEARM and even if you own those two audio items maybe you can't discern about because sometimes we need to know what to look for, this is that we must have a test whole proved proccesss.
The cartridge signal quality level depends ( everything the same ) directly/mainly by the Phono Stage and tonearm quality design levels. No matters what.
Discern between different and better depends of each one of us MUSIC/sound experience.
Thank you to all for the thoughts so far. What I was getting at (or trying to do so) was which of the four components has the most effect on final sound, which comes next and so on. It's obvious that if there is a bottleneck in sound quality ('the weakest link') then that must be addressed. But to me, a TT or a tonearm has a relatively subtle effect compared to a cartridge or a phono stage. Likewise, I can certainly hear changes when I swap phono stages, but I hear bigger changes when I swap cartridges. And what's the point of this? - very little! Maybe I'm simply justifying my choices, as I realise my expenditure on the four items has followed my ranking above!
I can’t rank them as the weakest link would glare IMO. Great cartridge is huge but has to have a great arm to perform at its best. Then the phono stage has to be up to par with the arm/cart.
Until I upgraded my tonearm to a basis vector 4 I thought the same thing as Russ above. But man what a difference it made to my presentation it was jaw dropping compared to other upgrades I have made. After all the arm just gives the cartridge a ride, right? Man is that ever an understatement.
Dear @dogberry : TRansducers always are the more important links in the audio system because with out transducers we can't listen MUSIC.
Now and taking in count that today almost no one owns only one cartridge then I think that the primary system link in alogue is the Phono Stage because is this unit the one that perhaps has the hardest work with the audio cartridge signal due that needs amplify that tiny lvelsignal over 10k times and needs to do it with very low noise and with very low developed distortions along to has a " perfect " inverse RIAA eq. that's an equalization f around 40dbs ! ! . The unit needs too all the facilities to handled any LOMC or MM/MI cartridges: it has to be universal and most be an active high gain unit with no SUT ( no pun intented. ). The Phono Stage main target most be to preserve the extremely sensible and tyny level cartridge recorded signal and I mean it: Preserve its quality. Extreme hard task for say the least.
Following with the same way of thinking the second link is the tonearm that has to be one that " accepts " cartridges with different compliance/weigth and stays inside the ideal resonance frequency.
After those links comes the cartridge where " ironically " the other two links operate as cartridge slaves.
Yes, TT is way important too but according with my way of thinking is not more important, critical yes but today TTs are really good.
Maybe i am old school but turntable/arm are the top of my list. Cartridge could be the last one, as even a modest mm would have a better chance to sing on a better platform than a top cartridge mounted on a much lesser turntable/arm combo. My current set up is turntable/arm/cartridge/ phono stage. I have solved the main part, and i know where to upgrade when ready.
I’d want the best turntable I could afford to start with even if compromising on the rest, I don’t want to be changing it very often, I don’t mind swapping in a better arm and particularly cartridge later, though sometimes the arm choice is more or less dictated by it as with the Regas and Well Tempereds.
I’d add set up to the list, particularly when the cartridge has an advanced stylus shape but even with a spherical stylus it’s worth putting in some effort.
You can get excellent sound from a cartridge/phono stage with a modest but well designed turn table/arm IF it is set up properly in the first place and maintained. IMHO vinyl is not plug and play. It in itself can/should be a hobby if you really want the great sound that a vinyl system can produce.
I look at the Cartridge/Tonearm/Phono Stage as one unit. They have to be considered as one unit to achieve the best performance. Modern systems are incredibly good compared to what we were using in the 60s and early 70s. The differences in the top systems are incredibly nuanced as compared to the top Speaker/Room systems which can be night or day.
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