2. analog
  3. 169802-87559

Turntable versus tonearm versus cartridge: which is MOST important?

Before someone chimes in with the obvious "everything is important" retort, what I'm really wondering about is the relative significance of each.

So, which would sound better:

A state of the art $10K cartridge on a $500 table/arm or a good $500 cartridge on a $10K table/arm?

Assume good enough amplification to maximize either set up.

My hunch is cartridge is most critical, but not sure to what extent.

Thanks.


bobbydd

Showing 2 responses by cd318

cd318
2,636 posts
 
@mijostyn,
A rare moment of almost total agreement indeed. Especially considering the various vested interests at play. A few cartridge vendors may be heard mumbling at the back, but mostly everyone else is in accord.

I'd also add that the turntable is more important than the arm because it provides a resonance free platform for the arm/cartridge combination to do their work.

The turntable also needs accuracy of playback speed and hence pitch.
That's why rumble and wow and flutter measurements are held to be so important.
Anyway here's an opinion from someone who should know.



"Turntable differences are greater than any other item of Hi Fi equipment.


CD players sound different to one another, but not a lot in comparison to turntables.

-----

A better turntable will improve the clarity, dynamics and ability to follow every strand of the music plus other aspects too numerous to mention. Gone is blurred, woolly bass and general confusion in the sound."


"No matter how good your cartridge is, it’s been proved that it can never perform at anything like it’s true capability without a good tonearm.

In the same way, a relatively inexpensive cartridge worth £50 can outperform one that costs £1250 simply by being installed on a better arm."


These are the words of respected tonearm makers Origin Live - even if the price /performance ratio isn't always a linear one.

Something which Origin Live themselves demonstrated some while back.

https://www.originlive.com/


cd318
2,636 posts
 

@atmasphere ,

"The cost of the cartridge has almost nothing to do with it. This all comes from the arm and how well the cartridge compliance and weight works to allow for the mechanical resonance to fall into the right frequency."

 

Well said.

Our human mind, as we know, is often easily overloaded and it then usually tries to simplify matters by resorting to general principles.

These can be called prejudices and more often than not they are useful when making decisions.

One such prejudice is that higher cost always equals greater performance.

However, when it comes to sonic performance I don’t see any great correlation with cost. The best I can suggest is that it seems to resemble a bell curve where beyond a certain point, performance can often start to go down.

Some might say that beyond a certain point, it has nowhere else to go!

 

Therefore throwing increasingly large sums of money at audio products might be the surest way to ultimate disappointment.

A bit like trading your Lexus in for ’something better’.

 

Turntable/tonearm/cartridge compatibility (and siting) might be one of the least understood areas in all of domestic audio.

What we do know is that resonance control matters.

What we don’t always know is how best to achieve it.

More to discover