Never mind , transducers always are the most important links in any audio system.
Raul, anyone who has ever spent ten seconds on this Board in the last ten years knows you have a unrequited out of control cartridge fetish. I envision you sleeping on a mattress surrounded by cartridge boxes.
Transducers are not the most important part of the audio system. You may believe so and you have every right to your belief but many argue otherwise, and I am among the latter camp. Look up Herb Reichert's recent tale of wandering into an audio store and being introduced to Naim gear set up with inexpensive loudspeakers for a good anecdotal account of the opposing view. Cartridges and loudspeakers are very simple devices. Only audiophiles make them out to be more complicated and exotic than they really are. Do they have the biggest influence on sound character? That is a different question. Sorta like are noses the most dominant feature on a face? Yeah, most times and certainly on mine! That does not make them the most critical component. Feed a pair of the most expensive loudspeaker on the planet (any of the top 50) with a mediocre amplifier and preamplifier and you can never get anything better than mediocre to good sound. Pair a pedestrian set of loudspeakers (critically positioned in the room they are in) up with a stellar amp and pre-amp and you can get great sound. Which brings us back to the current debate which has surfaced time and time again. Like my nose joke, turntables get the most attention because-imho-they are the most prominent item. The choice of drive unit is almost inevitably made first. It draws all the attention of would-be buyers. Ooooh, look at that huge platter! Ooooh, look at that outboard power supply with a digital read out! You get the idea. Most of us are guilty of that misdirected (again, must my humble op) focus. I am biased perhaps because I got off the modern era table bandwagon and went to vintage with Reed 3P arms though I have spent considerable money on cartridges. But I know that could give up those cartridges and mount a $250 Audio Technica or Denon and get fantastic sound.
@chakster "I’ll tell you more: change the stylus tip on your cartridge and you will change the whole sound." I agree completely. I just re-tipped the Zyx Omega G cartridge and the sound is completely different with the original. Better or worse is another story.
Raul, no sensible audiophile could disagree with what you wrote. (Is the term “sensible audiophile” an oxymoron?) But at the outset, the OP wrote that he did not want responses to the effect that everything is important. This I think drove the tenor of the responses he’s gotten. I dislike such questions per se, but I was bored enough at that moment to concoct a response. With an excellent TT and tonearm, you can get a lot of juice out of a mediocre cartridge, but I don’t think the reverse is true. Not in my experience.
Dear @mijostyn : "
the rest of us are hallucinatory. ", not exactly.
I think that problem is that several of the posts are taking the TT and tonearm main characteristics to make a good job, are " disecting " each item when in my view it's an issue that should ve analised as a whole one.
Yes, if the TT has not a decent speed stability then we have to fix it changing it but with that kind of " attitude " it's " healthy " to say that the more important link is the electrical power or the TT arm mount or its type of screws used on it and all these is " crazy " for say the least. There is no whole context is almost " stupid ".
For me the issue is not to analyse each item link isolated but as a whole system with specific premises.
All we know the importance of TT speed stability and about non-vibrational plynths or about the rigth TT mat and clamp: so what? all those each item characteristics are implicit when we are talking of TT. We are not newcomers, do you?
As I said we need an overall context with scaled analog system . For me has no sense try to do it as other gentlemans already did it.
Obviously makes sense to you and to them.
Never mind , transducers always are the most important links in any audio system.
Which is more important: speakers or an amp?
Transducers are the ones that have the higher posibilities to make higher differences for the better or for worst.
Analog is simple but really complex due to its imperfections levels everywhere down there with to many different " parameters " with an inherent relationship in between. It's a madness and you said that TT/tonearm comes first?
Everything is important and that's why we should try to talk on not isolated items scenario but as a scaled systems.
Good for you and the other gentlemans that are happy inside that " hallucinatory " mind scenario. Go a head ! ! !
Millercarbon said it all. My addendum:The most economical route may be to keep on upgrading arm and table, while having a cheap(er) cartridge that can step up big way.Not all cartridges can step up when the table/arm combo is greatly elevated.I found the Audiotechnica ATF7 is such a hidden gem. Totally inexpensive LOMC cartridge, as cheap as LOMC can get. I got it as a backup cartridge to test play my second hand records. On the big table it plays in big cartridge league, and each improvement on arm / table / step up made it step up higher and higher. Athough, I have to add I never tried it on the Rega or other cheaper tables / arms, so don't know how it performs on a cheap table... but that's kind of out of the question as LOMC step up on the cheap is pretty bad. In the low price range MM is the way to go. A cheap MM cartridge that can play big time on big tables is the AT440MLa or MLb. (good luck finding MLa version! But sadly even the AT440MLb have become quite expensive now, while 20 years ago it was a cheap(ish) cartridge!) On a basic table (Rega P3, with Rega arm) for example the AT440MLb and the Grado Prestige sound quite in the same league - different presentation style, but similar performance. Put them on a big VPI-caliber table, and the AT440MLb skyrockets and the little Grado falls apart. The ATF7 is cheaper than the AT440MLb, yet on a big table it completely eclipses the AT440MLb. Yet, the AT440MLb has nothing to be ashamed of either, and its lifespan and durability is absolutely outstanding.
Put a Reed 3P arm on any of George Merrill's Gem Dandy polytables and mount the bargain cartridge of your choice and you can get utterly amazing sound. Another similar scenario is put any of the arms offered by Pure Fidelity (my choice would be the Acoustic Signature TA-2000) https://purefidelity.ca/turntables.html along with one of their tables and any reasonably good budget cartridge and again, amazing sound. For me, against all of my expectations years ago, it is tonearm first, table second, and cartridge last. When it comes to the drive system, speed control, motor noise isolation and Fremer's finger tap test are all aspects of vinyl playing that appeal to measurement nerds but in real life take a second chair to sound reliability/durability with decent but not all-out design principles. The turntable needs to be good, not stellar. The tonearm needs to be stellar. There a huge bargains in current cartridge offerings.
@chakster, @rauliruegas, It appears the two of you are in agreement with each other. Together you probably have more cartridges than the rest of us combined. So I guess we will leave it at that. The two of you are on to something and the rest of us are hallucinatory. Gin and Tonic anyone?
It’s the most stupid point I have ever heard that a cartridge can’t perform without tonearm and therefore tonearm is more important.
Your turntable can’t work without electricity, so let’s say pure electricity is more important than everything else you plug in the power socket ?
You can’t even change a tonearm on most of the modern turntables! Those tonearms are good enough for your $200 cartridges. Look at the $150 Technics tonearm made a long time ago for $450 turntables like SL1210mk2, this tonearm is a worldwide standard and that was the most popular turntable in the world (they sold many millions of them worldwide)!
Tonearm problems solved long time ago for most of the people, this problem simply do not exist if you have a good entry level turntable, and if you have a phono stage, amp and speakers you’d better understand that ONLY cartridge with its stylus/cantilever/generator actually read the grooves. Change a cartridge (on a cheap tonearm) and you will change the whole sound, I’ll tell you more: change the stylus tip on your cartridge and you will change the whole sound.
Old SL1210 mkII is a very good example of entry level turntable that was $350 in the 90’s.
-Will you change a tonearm on that turntable or will you try a better cartridge first ?
In this situation a better tonearm will give you nothing if your cartridge is not good enough.
A better cartridge will make your system better without changing anything else! And if you will find a cartridge that you really like you can continue the upgrade path with much better results after tonearm swap or whatever in your analog chain.
My own personal observation is that the table and arm are critical for getting the best out of any given cartridge.
I've tried my $300 grado platinum (original) on both my Denon DP-1250 with a Magnepan Unitrac 1 arm and my TNT 4 with ET 2.5 Tonearm, both thru a Herron MM input. The Denon is a decent DD deck, and the Maggie arm is quite remarkable. But there wasn't much of a contest here. Soundstaging was better on the TNT, as was detail retrieval (even with the elliptical stylus), timbre, bass, highs, just about everything. Other than the bass, most of the differences were smaller, but when added up overall, the TNT fared much better. I also tried the same experiment with a Supex SDX-1100r and an Audioquest B100, both moving coils going into the Herron MC input. Even more of a difference favoring the TNT/ET2.5 combo.
I suspect that others may find differently depending on the arm/table combinations that they compare, but for me, a less expensive cartridge is much more satisfying on an expensive. well engineered table/arm combo than an expensive cartridge is on a more budget minded table/arm. Expensive cartridges even more so.
An added benefit is that you will be able to hear deficiencies in the cartridge better on a better table, and that knowledge may help you in determining a future cartridge when the time comes.
Dear friends : The thread is interesting but the op question.
Analog rigs comes or are scaled/levels and I think that to have a better view on the analog rig links importance could be better to analize inside each one level/scaled scenario:
- entry level analog rig as Rega, Project or Technics where the Rega/Project TTs already comes with mounted cartridges.
The Rega/project units makes its job at its entry level status. We can't ask here for tigth speed stability ( well the Technics 1200 G is very good about. ) and non-resonat/vibrational plattforms and certainly not the SAT tonearm but even with those analog rigs with its own mounted tonearm every time the owner change the cartridge he can listen the improvement due to a better cartridge.
So in this level seems to me that cartridge makes the difference.
- what happens if we go up in the analog rig scale? where we have better TTs and better tonearms. Well seems to me that it's the cartridge the link that makes the difference every time we change it.
and I can follow up in the analog rig scale with almost similar results: cartridge really makes the difference, is the one with the higher posibilities to do it.
Higher differences with the cartridge changes that when we change similar price tonearm or TT.
Normally an audiophile or newcomers not own 4-5 TTs and 10 tonearms but you can be sure that own more than one cartridge.
For me try to analize any audio subject with out context has no really meaning and could be useless.
I posted several times: other than the LP the source is the cartridge it's the transducer and the TT/tonearm are , like it or not, its slaves because both items ( TT/tonearm. ) where choosed for the cartridge can shows at its best and this happens too with the phono stage choice.
Is it important the TT and the tonearm? of course both are but with a way different roles down there.
From some time now we can't find out really bad TTs or bad tonearms. So changing a cartridge with better tracking abilities ( even inside same price levels. ) , everything the same, will shows better quality level in what we are listening.
No two transducers sound alike/the same but some TTs and in less way tonearms does it.
@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.
I think we have safely established that the turntable/tonearm are more important than the cartridge for starters, a rare moment of almost total agreement.
$10K cartridge and $500 turntable/arm is a total nonsense, but 10K turntable/arm and $500 cartridge is not too much of nonsense. I can imagine people using Denon D103r or AT150mlx (about $500 MC and MM cartridges) on their 10K turntable/arm. So, the latter approach makes much more sense. Probably $10K turntable/arm and $50 cartridge is as much nonsense as the former. Having said that, IMHO, getting near perfect match of turntable, arm, cartridge, and plinth is extremely hard for novices (myself included) if purchased separately. If you are a DIY type of person, it will be fun to play around, but it will still take lots of time/money/effort to make it right.
I would suggest to you that in an analog audio system the most crucial is where the translations occur. The cartridge translates the record groove into an electrical signal and the speaker translates the electrical signal into the wiggling air molecules that we hear as sound. But just as the performance of the speaker depends on the interaction with the listening room, so does the performance of the cartridge depend on the interaction with tonearm and turntable. They are the 'environments' in which the transducers need to operate, so in a sense the turntable/tonearm is the cartridge's room. If these environments are not capable of eliminating the most intrusive audible interferences (noisy bearings and motor instability with tonearm/turntable platform, standing waves and other acoustic anomalies in a room, etc.) these transducers will never reach their full potential.
So a high quality turntable/tonearm platform that largely eliminates these intrusions is where you should start, but in today's niche market this usually costs big money. But if you're prepared to look back in time you will discover that most of these problems were already dealt with pretty succesfully in the 20th century, when analog playback was still the dominant music playback source. No need to spend 10k, as $1500 for a solid 80's turntable and another $1500 for a really good vintage tonearm will provide you with the largely non intrusive platform that is required to take full benefit of the best cartridges. This is when tonearm/cartridge synergy will start to make sense and you will discover that certain combinations will sing beyond your wildest expectations, to a certain extend even regardless of the cartridge cost. This is where the fun really begins.
However, be aware that such a quality platform will not magically make a budget cartridge sound like a top level one. I know there are people who believe a Denon DL103 is all they need, but you know what they say about polishing a turd.....
This can be stated simply and is easily and repeatably demonstrated. The ability of the arm to track the cartridge correctly is far more important than which cartridge you have. Put another way, if the arm can't track the cartridge you won't be able to fix it with the most expensive or 'best' tracking cartridge made.
In my humble experience (40 years) your hunch would be
incorrect. A proper turntable and tonearm (more expensive) will allow you to
extract the most performance from a $500.00 phono cartridge. You will then have
a platform (turntable/tonearm) that will reveal further improvements in
phono cartridge performance down the road.
Summed up or put another way; buy the very best turntable
and tonearm you can afford FIRST.
Perhaps it is not as extreme as this hypothetical, but, I know someone who bought a $5,000 cartridge to temporarily use on the cheapest Pro-ject table. I helped another friend with the installation, which included milling a heavier counterweight to use than the one supplied by Pro-ject. The installation involved using a Feickert protractor, and a very good digital scale (I own equipment for setting azimuth electronically, but, we thought this is overkill for this installation). The combination sounded good, except for some noticeable inner groove distortion. The distortion was probably from the arm being barely able to handle the vibrational energy from the cartridge. When the cartridge was installed in its permanent home, an EMT turntable/arm, there were no issues with inner groove distortion.
@millercarbon. “Put your money into table and arm. Then cartridge.”
+1
I really had to think about this. I have owned only four or five turntables and twice as many cartridges. But MC is right… every one of my “wow, that is incredible” moments have been the turntable / arm changes (I don’t buy arms separately), never a cartridge change.
OP's question is purposely obtuse, as kingbarbuda points out. Any real buyer would really ask "How do I apportion my $10.5K bundle to get the best sounding set?". In that case there are environmental considerations to consider in the choice of turntable and tonearm, but clearly most of the budget goes there. Nobody should buy such an expensive cart on that budget.
$500 can get you a nice cartridge, it does not have to be something unworthy of a nice table. You can then upgrade the cartridge in time. It is far harder to upgrade the table or arm, unless both are purchased at the same time.
When looking for that nice table, look for models that put an emphasis on the arm. It is getting harder to find decent arms these days (a major OEM maker for a number of brands--Jelco--went out of business). The arm will become quite important when you do upgrade the cartridge; many of the better cartridges are lower in compliance (stiffer suspension) which means they have a tendency to feed back more energy into the arm which has to be stiff enough to handle this energy and the bearings musst also be stiff enough not to rattle while being low enough in friction for their movement to be unrestricted.
You can attempt to disregard the "everything matters" argument but it doesn't make it less pertinent, and trying to use price as the only criteria may not be the best way forward when asking "which is more important" (which is not too far removed from "which is better") question, is probably not the question to ask in the first place. You see experienced and knowledgeable people above give council while trying to work around the inevitable truth that every piece or interactions between pieces in the signal path is a potential bottleneck. I just watched a video with VPI's Harry and Matt Weisfeld, and they both had remarked about how good a $50 Audio-Technica cartridge (they didn't say which one, so I would say it's the AT95E) sounded on their $20k HW-40 table; to be clear, they didn't advise that and recommended higher quality carts, but the point was made that the associated equipment allowed a modest cartridge to shine regardless of the price, because everything else stayed out of the way.
though I realize not everyone here will agree, and most do agree that "everything matters", I strongly believe that the areas of analogue reproduction involving the conversions of mechanical to electrical information, and vice versa, are the likeliest areas to create changes in perceived sound, ie, tonearm/cartridge/turntable, and speakers/room...my experience also dictates what Millercarbon says above, you want the cartridge to get everything from the groove but nothing from the outside world, so a good cartridge w a great arm and table usually surpasses a great cartridge with a lesser table and arm....
It is also easier and usually much less expensive to upgrade cartridges down the line than turntables. Even the best cartridges will wear out. The best turntables will not.
This one is easy. The $500 cartridge on the better turntable. It is easy to make an expensive cartridge sound terrible, much worse than a $500 cartridge working at it's best.
Up to some point the platform, that is the turntable and arm, are the most important because if the basic foundation is not solid then the cartridge can't perform well. That should be obvious. But once that critical point is reached, then the relative importance of the pieces would shift it seems to me. We could argue about exactly where the change over occurs forever, but in principle it should be possible to agree on this basic formula.
IMO to deduct from price about quality is difficult especially in audio. So comparison only on price is even more difficult. Although I haven't heard very cheap cartridge which plays very good on any system. If there is problems to discriminate good MC or moving iron from
AT-VM95E
- there a problem with a system but it doesn't mean that it's a problem with a price of
AT-VM95E
No matter how you improve your tonearm and/or turntable, if you have a crap cartridge, you will NEVER get good sound, whereas the other way round, your chances are much better.
@bobbydd I understand what you are asking. But in making your point you used hyperbole and made the comparison impractical. @miilercarbon addressed this. But for SQ purposes and practical purposes, you are not going to put an expensive cart on a cheap turntable and you are not going to put a cheap cart on an expensive turntable. So the answer is there needs to be a balance. The cart needs to do the turntable justice and vice versa.
Recently I replaced an Infinity Black Widow version 2 Tonearm with a used sme v. Simply to get the table up and rolling, a Pickering XV-15 with a $35 stylus was installed on the SME. After tweaks, removing the brush and adjusting the damper thingy, wow! This cartridge has been on 3 or 4 tables of mine by now. The improvement provided from the tonearm upgrade is staggering. I am in no hurry to replace this cartridge. Which seems odd due to the fact that 2 different Soundsmith cartridges are waiting in the wings. Point being, I was a tonearm denier. Now, a tonearm believer.
@Bobbydd - either would be a strange approach to analogue reproduction because you will not be getting the best out of either the arm or the cartridge in either approach
You do need a good arm and a cartridge that is best suited to that arm As an example...
My Audiomods arm cost $1000 and is an exceptional performer and
I have a Soundsmith modified Denon DL 103 with a ruby cantilever and their best stylus at around $500.
PLUS I added some additional mass to achieve a closer match of the compliance of the arm and cartridge.
The resulting sound is very pleasing
So as with anything in this hobby - a more educated approach can achieve much more than simply throwing cash at one particular piece of hardware
But it does not stop there - I researched
a sub platter of the right design
a platter of the right design
a plinth of the right design
vibration isolation
etc...
You just need to do some analysis before buying anything - especially with turntables, because the wrong choice can lead you down some very expensive rabbit holes.
My TT/cartridge combo is one of the most researched pieces of equipment in my system and it paid huge dividends in sound quality and enjoyment
A state of the art $10K cartridge on a $500 table/arm or a good $500 cartridge on a $10K table/arm?
It’s a weird question, you’re trying to put together something very cheap and something very expensive.
Ask yourself who can afford a $10k cartridge and why ? A person who wishes to buy a $10k cartridge for a $500 turntable must be sick!
Now forget about retail prices, because on the secondhand market you will find something expensive for cheap (used), the price drop can be 50% (sometimes even more). If you will stay away from some popular brands like restored Garrard (for example) you can actually find some very nice turntables for a reasonable price (Denon DP-80 Direct Drive for example), same for vintage tonearms in perfect condition.
If we already have a very expensive turntable (new or vintage) with a nice tonearm (new or vintage) we can always find NEW or VINTAGE cartridges for that arm. A good vintage high-end cartridge (NOS sample) can put your overpriced new ultra high-end to the dust forever, this is where the price difference can be shockingly big, but a price/performance ratio is not that big at all ! It will break your concept, because your NEW $10k LOMC is overpriced while a $1k VINTAGE is underrated and not supported by manufacturers ads anymore (can be totally unknown to most of the audiophiles today).
A question like this makes no sense at all, because these numbers do not mean anything, except for a situation where you are standing in the audio shop in front of the new components and for some reason pretend that a new $500 turntable that look like a toy for your children is better with a $10k cartridge (or vise versa).
In the real world you can buy amazing turntables for under $3k and amazing high-end cartridges under $3k estimate (you can do it even for a half price:). But well matched components (tonearm/cartridge) are better.
A state of the art $10K cartridge on a $500 table/arm or a good $500 cartridge on a $10K table/arm?
Now that I think about it, I actually have everything here to make almost this exact comparison: Origin Live Sovereign turntable with Origin Live Enterprise arm is very close to $10k. Koetsu Black Goldline is not a $10k cartridge but is a pretty darn good cartridge all the same.
My vintage Technics SL1700 is also very close to your hypothetical $500 turntable. On it is a Stanton 681EEE which is quite a bit less than $500.
So not exactly what you said, but pretty darn close. In this case it is no contest. I am not about to move the Koetsu to the Technics, not unless you get off your hypothetical you know what and make the trip here. But if you do and if we do I will bet you your next paycheck against mine you agree the table and arm make the biggest difference.
And I hope you have a lot of OT on your next one because I sure have a lot of OT on mine!
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