@mijostyn
You misunderstand our antipodean humour - @halcro and I have great mutual respect
You misunderstand our antipodean humour - @halcro and I have great mutual respect
Who needs a Diamond Cantilever...? đ
So suddenly, there seems to be a trend for Uber-LOMC cartridges released with Diamond Cantilevers...đ±
As if the High-End MC cartridges were not already overpriced....?!
Orofon have released the MC-ANNA-DIAMOND after previously releasing the Limited Edition MC-CENTURY...also with Diamond Cantilever.
Then thereâs the KOETSU BLOODSTONE PLATINUM and DYNAVECTOR KARAT 17D2 and ZYX ULTIMATE DIAMOND and probably several more.
But way back in 1980....Sony released a Diamond-Cantilevered version of its fine XL-88 LOMC Cartridge.
Imaginatively....they named this model the XL-88D and, because it was the most expensive phono cartridge in the world (costing 7500DM which was more expensive than a Volkswagen at the time)....Sony, cleverly disguised this rare beast to look EXACTLY like its âcheapâ brother with its complex hybrid cantilever of "special light metal held by a carbon-fibre pipe both being held again by a rigid aluminium pipe".
The DIAMOND CANTILEVER on the 88D however......was a thing of BEAUTY and technological achievement, being formed from ONE PIECE OF DIAMOND including the stylus đ€Żđđœ
Iâve owned the XL-88 for many years and recently discovered that it was my best (and favourite) cartridge when mounted in the heavy Fidelity Research S-3 Headshell on the SAEC WE-8000/ST 12" Tonearm around my VICTOR TT-101 TURNTABLE.
Without knowing this in advance.....I would not have been prepared to bid the extraordinary prices (at a Japanese Auction Site) that these rare cartridges keep commanding.
To find one in such STUNNING CONDITION with virtually no visible wear was beyond my expectations đ
So how does it sound.....?
Is there a difference to the standard XL-88?
Is the Diamond Cantilever worth the huge price differential?
Is the Pope a Catholic....?
This cartridge simply âblows my mindâ...which is hard to do when Iâve had over 80 cartridges on 10 different arms mounted on two different turntables đ€Ż
As Syntax said on another Thread:-
But now Iâve bought myself a nightmarish scenario.......
There is no replacement stylus for this cartridge!
There is no replacement cantilever for this cartridge!
Each time I play records with it, I am âkillingâ it a bit more đ„Žđ„
If I knew how long I had left to live......I could program my âlistening sessionsâ đ€Ș
But failing this.....I canât help but feel slightly uncomfortable listening to this amazing machine.
As if the High-End MC cartridges were not already overpriced....?!
Orofon have released the MC-ANNA-DIAMOND after previously releasing the Limited Edition MC-CENTURY...also with Diamond Cantilever.
Then thereâs the KOETSU BLOODSTONE PLATINUM and DYNAVECTOR KARAT 17D2 and ZYX ULTIMATE DIAMOND and probably several more.
But way back in 1980....Sony released a Diamond-Cantilevered version of its fine XL-88 LOMC Cartridge.
Imaginatively....they named this model the XL-88D and, because it was the most expensive phono cartridge in the world (costing 7500DM which was more expensive than a Volkswagen at the time)....Sony, cleverly disguised this rare beast to look EXACTLY like its âcheapâ brother with its complex hybrid cantilever of "special light metal held by a carbon-fibre pipe both being held again by a rigid aluminium pipe".
The DIAMOND CANTILEVER on the 88D however......was a thing of BEAUTY and technological achievement, being formed from ONE PIECE OF DIAMOND including the stylus đ€Żđđœ
Iâve owned the XL-88 for many years and recently discovered that it was my best (and favourite) cartridge when mounted in the heavy Fidelity Research S-3 Headshell on the SAEC WE-8000/ST 12" Tonearm around my VICTOR TT-101 TURNTABLE.
Without knowing this in advance.....I would not have been prepared to bid the extraordinary prices (at a Japanese Auction Site) that these rare cartridges keep commanding.
To find one in such STUNNING CONDITION with virtually no visible wear was beyond my expectations đ
So how does it sound.....?
Is there a difference to the standard XL-88?
Is the Diamond Cantilever worth the huge price differential?
Is the Pope a Catholic....?
This cartridge simply âblows my mindâ...which is hard to do when Iâve had over 80 cartridges on 10 different arms mounted on two different turntables đ€Ż
As Syntax said on another Thread:-
When you have 2 identical carts, one regular cantilever and the other one with diamond cantilever (Koetsu Stones for example), the one with diamond cantilever shows more details, is a bit sharper in focus and the soundstage is a bit deeper and wider. They can sound a bit more detailed overall with improved dynamicsIâll leave it at that for the time being. I will soon upload to YouTube, the sound comparisons between the two Sony versions on my HEAR MY CARTRIDGES THREAD.
But now Iâve bought myself a nightmarish scenario.......
There is no replacement stylus for this cartridge!
There is no replacement cantilever for this cartridge!
Each time I play records with it, I am âkillingâ it a bit more đ„Žđ„
If I knew how long I had left to live......I could program my âlistening sessionsâ đ€Ș
But failing this.....I canât help but feel slightly uncomfortable listening to this amazing machine.
Showing 17 responses by dover
@halcro Itâs impossible via the YouTube Videos to hear the ephemeral nuances that I hear in my room....things like soundstage (side to side and back to back), transparency, imaging, image height etc Hi Halcro - in my view, even on standard mac ibuds/Macair,  it's quite easy to here significant differences between the XL88 & XL88D. In some ways the 1st comparision was more revealing - the base line on the XL88D has much better timing and resolution. The XL88 by comparison has no timing at all on the base line, its all over the place. There is more information around the base line in paricular, harmonic fulness and detail. The high frequencies on the XL88D are crisper and appear to be significantly more transparent. On the second recording again the timing is better, more transparent through the while range, by that I mean you can hear more body, harmonic completeness and sustain and decay of notes. Piano is  much more purposeful on the XL88D ( and more real ). As an aside, on your comparision of the Palladian and XL88 on the other thread the mid to top end of the XL88 sounded identical to the old Madrigal Carnegie on baroque music both of which I listen to a lot. The Carnegie was a Sony XLMC9 rebadged. Your comment about "vintage cartridges" is a little misnomer as Sony Soundtech designed these cartridges to be the ultimate analogue ( triple layer cantilevers of boron/carbon & aluminium, newly designed figure 8 coil layout and the Sony motor design was adopted by both Van den hul & Benz. The Early Van den hul MC1/Benz Ref/Carnegie are virtually identical. I do note however the bass being still a little vague on the SAEC/XL88 on the baroque ( noticeable because the mid to top end is so good ) and would encourage you to find a lighter more rigid headshell - these Sony's are medium compliance and their suspensions are not robust. Again I believe the Cobra tonearm would provide the same improvements with the Sony XL's as you experienced with the Palladian over the SAEC. I know from personal experience the Sony XL88D performed extremely well on the Dynavector tonearm I own, significantly better than on the SAEC 407/23 used on the same turntable. Finally, congrats on the acquisition of the XL88D, one day it will be no more, but at least you have had the pleasure of hearing it for a while, a very special cartridge. |
Moerch that comes from the Highphonic tonearm design.Wrong. Moerch released its first tonearm UP4 in 1981, 4 years before the Highphonic was launched in 1985. I think youâll find the Highphonic arm was a rebadged Moerch. From where came Highphonic cartridges?, well from ex-Denon cartridge employees that founded HP and the first " move " in their new designs came to the cantilever build material that instead to use aluminum like in Denon they started to use carbon fiber, diamond and ruby.So what. Like the Denon DL1000 ( which I owned ) all the Highphonic cartridges ( which I have heard ) were thin and lean, no meat on the bones. If you think you can live on Kale salad these are the cartridges for you. Cartridges are always a sum of the parts - a diamond cantilever on an average cartridge is at best just a more articulate average cartridge. |
@edgewear @jcarr As an owner of the Final Audio VTT1 turntable since the 80's, which is a phenominal turntable, I have seen 2 versions of the Final cartridge produced for Final by Yoshihisa Mori. One version had a half length diamond cantilever. The other had a full length diamond cantilever like the Sony XL88 Custom. The XL88 on the Final TT was superb. I still have a Dynavector Karat Nova 13D that Dynavector has kindly rebuilt for me a couple of times - the current one has a Microscanner tip which improved it considerably in terms of transparency. I have also seen another Final cartridge with diamond cantilever ( half and full pipe ) with a stand alone body, not an integrated headshell, but I dont think that was based on the Sony. Will be very interested to hear your impressions. |
@chakster So some of you who blame me for collecting The best Vintage MM should know that Diamond, Boron, Ruby whatever you name it  ... is technology from the 70âs.Funny how you eschew the use of materials from the 70's as outdated, but still fantasise that the suspension systems of the clapped out vintage cartridges from the 70's that you resell are in perfect shape after 50 years. There are many superior vintage materials no longer available simply because of cost to manufacture, health and safety laws, not enough demand - high end audio is generally too small a market to produce specific materials. Examples are SPZ material used in the Final Audio VTT1 turntable that I own - a cast material that has superplasticity at room temperature and resonances between 10hz and 100hz are dissipated internally at a molecular level. The material was original invented in Japan for earthquake proofing build foundations, but was too expensive to manufacture and discontinued. The original Final Audio VTT1 with the SPZ base leaves the big micros and most every other TT that I have heard, including your direct drives sounding coloured and vague. The Kondo Ginga is a cheap dumbed down copy of the original Final Audio Research VTT1 with none of the superior 1970's materials engineering. Toxicity issues in the manufacture of hollow boron and beryllium cantilevers. There are numerous other examples. |
@mijostyn Pretty good amateur opinion Raul. This is what I came up with. The specific gravity of Boron is 2.34. This means that Boron is 2.34 times heavier than an equal volume of water. The specific gravity of diamond is 3.52! Diamond is significantly heavier than Boron. A Boron cantilever will have a lower effective mass and theoretically track better. This does not take into account the stiffness of the two materials. Both are very stiff but I believe diamond is stiffer. The stiffer material would provide more accurate transmission. In order to know which is superior in any given design I think you would have to build the cartridge both ways and subject it to testing. I have this itch that tells me the diamond is more of a marketing strategy than anything else.ÂOn my Dynavector Nova 13D the diamond cantilever is only 1.3mm long, Â therefore it is almost certainly lighter than most boron cantilevers of conventional length. Regards to use of diamond, my understanding with the Dynavector Nova 13D is that the stiffness pushes resonances further up out of the audio band improving high frequency extension. As an aside are your specific gravity numbers germaine to synthetic diamonds/rubies versus the natural material ?? With regard to short cantilevers look at the van den hul colibri - van den hul has certianly gone down a path of shorter cantilevers and medium compliance with his current generation. |
@mijostyn I am beginning to think moving coil cartridges are a waste of money and that you can get equal or better performance out of much less expensive moving magnet and iron cartridges. I dont agree. MMâs have an inherent issue in that the high frequency response has phase and linearity issues, the capacitive loading is essentially tuning the high frquency response to get some semblance of linearity at the cost of phase anomalies. Even Raul after trawling through gazillions of MM's has concluded that he prefers LOMC's. The issue with MC's I believe is the paucity of really good moving coil phono stages. Of course there are duds out there, but there are excellent MC's from even quite modest pricing ( example Audio Technica AT33Ptg ) provided you have a good phono stage. Moving Iron is a better alternative to LOMC's than MM's in my view - Decca, Soundsmith both produce excellent cartridges at a variety of price points. If someone has an average turntable/arm and/or phono they are more likely to get less issues with MM/MI than LOMC. That is the crux. I still have a Glanz MFG61 moving flux, JVC X1 MM and a few others in the box - I never listen to them, any decent LOMC for around $1500 blitzes them. Same with Chaksters much vaunted Audio Technica's he pushes, they are brittle and lack body. Soundsmith & Decca I can listen to ( and the odd Grado ). |
@chakster The cost is only $10k today if Mr. Adreoli will accept your order, unfortunately his cartridges are not available from the dealers or shops. And if you can search and read about him you will understand his philosophy and his opinion about the whole high-end market today.Its spelt Andreoli, with an N between the a and the d. No doubt you will be even more sickened that I have been using a custom built Reto Andreoli moving coil phono preamp for 20 years. Its very good, as are his cartridges. but your 1970's & 80's MM used retreads are not built to that standard. |
@halcro @edgewear The point of difference with the Final Audio/Sony XL88D cartridges are that the stylus and cantilever are cut from one diamond piece, there is no glue, no nude mounting. As far as I am aware these are the only cartridges made with cantilever/stylus cut from one piece. According to Yoshihisha Mori his aim was to eliminate the glue joint, he believed most of the benefit of a diamond cantilever is lost if the stylus is glued. |
@halcro If they could do this in the 1980s before CNC machines, 3D Printing and Computer-Controlled Lasers.Just a correction - Namiki was using lasers to manufacture nude mounted styli in jewelled cantilevers back in the 80's I believe - for example the micro ridge/microscanner styli in sapphire cantilevers. Last year I wiped out my Koetsu on my secondary turntable - rummaging through my parts bin I found a couple of Talisman S from the 80's. Interestingly one was mint original, the other had been retipped by Garrot Bros. What blew me away was when cleaning them up and checking the stylus condition, the original, which had a nude mounted diamond in a sapphire cantilever, struck me as a work of art - both stylus and sapphire tube were as clear as crystal and there appeared to be no glue at all, the joint was seamless, and I could see straight through both the tube and stylus as if there were nothing there - if you have seen an xray of a pin embedded in a bone, thats what it looked like, except crystal clear. When I look at the current price of moving coils - most dont have nude mounted styli until you get to the upper levels and there are some very expensive MC's out there with huge dobs of glue stuck on the end of the cantilever with a diamond embedded in the glue. It does make you wonder how important what type of cartridge screws you use or how long you left the angels hair wire used in the coils in the sacred vat when all said and done the stylus, trying to the measure the microgroove vibrations, whilst generating humungous amount of friction, is mounted in glue. I wonder if Namiki or whoever still makes cantilevers/styli are delivering to the standard that was being delivered back in the mid 80's. Our audio market is so miniscule in the scheme of things. |
@mijostyn I mean no glue. The Soundsmith ruby cantilever looks like a toilet brush with crap on the end compared to the 1980's Sumiko Talisman S. There is no comparison - the Soundsmith is crude. Having said that I like the Soundsmith cartridges in general. Check out the Soundsmith ruby cantilevers here and see the wads of glue supporting the diamond https://www.sound-smith.com/options-cantilever-and-stylus-shapes Now here check out the sapphire cantilever with microridge stylus https://ad-na-shop-en.myshopify.com/products/ă”ăăĄă€ăąă«ăłăăŹăăŒ-ăă€ăŻăăȘăăžé Even though the current Namiki sapphire cantilever/microridge stylus is a bit cleaner than the Soundsmith,  what I am saying is that the sapphire cantilever/microridge stylus in the Talsiman S from the 80's appears to be far higher quality than what is on offer today, and the mounting is much cleaner, even though it was made by Namiki back then. Maybe their current offering is a dumbed down version, I dont know. All I can see is that the 80's sapphire cantilevers with microridge styli as used by Sumiko at the time appear to be of a far higher quality than what is on offer today. I wish I had the tools to photograph the Talisman stylus - you would be shocked. |
@intactaudio Dovers only complaint seems to be centered on the visual look opposed to the actual quality / strength of the junction and I do not consider that alone to be a valid judgement of quality. Actually I have on hand both the original Sumiko Talisman S sapphire cantilever with nude mounted line contact and also another Taslisman S retipped by the original Garrott Bros with a Namiki microscanner sylus in the original sapphire tube cantilever. In a direct comparison the original is cleaner, more precise across the range. The Garrott retipped Talisman with microscanner has a fuller midrange, perhaps a little more evolved, but overall it is not as crisp as the orignal - the original is better. Interestingly I pulled out the Talisman paperwork and Sumiko describes it at follows "line contact stylus as above, laser mounted so that cantilever and stylus act as though they'd been shaped from a single diamond crystal." Remember this cartridge was a Sumiko badged Sony Soundtech design, so clearly they focussed on the rigidity of the stylus/cantilever joint. |
Van den hul's work in my experience ( 35 years ) is superb. As far as I know he is the only person to succesfully repair the super rare Technics EPC100 cartridges. The best rebuilt Koetsu Onyx Gold I have ever heard was one done by van den hul - and I have had north of 40 Koetsu's rebuilt ( both stone bodied and wood ) by either van den hul or the orginal Garrott Bros. Furthermore I have never known van den hul refuse to redo any work that wsn't up to scratch - his after sales service & support is superb. |
Here look what he did, he ruined an Audioquest AQ 7000 worth over 3000 $ in my country by putting his damn signature on it without authorization. No he didn't you plonker. He repaired a broken cartridge. If you didn't want vdh to sign his work, then you should have sent the cartridge back to the manufacturer for repair. |
@halcro All these cartridges have 3 things in common.... Having said that I wouldn't have bought any of those cartridges exept for the Urushi for Ravel La Valse, and the Lyra Titan i for speed and precision. I wouldn't necessarily ascribe the sound of any of these specifically to the boron cantilever. There are many audiophiles who claim to clearly hear the differences between MC and MM cartridges.....Iâm not one of those đ€ We have a phrase here in NZ - yeah right. There are many audiophiles who will only praise the virtues of exotic-profile Line-Contact type styli...Iâm almost in that âcampâ but am not dogmatic đ€ The only one I have a complete aversion to is the shibata - I have found every shibata tipped cartridge I have heard to be brittle - much prefer micro ridge of the exotic tips. |