What is the “World’s Best Cartridge”?

If you don’t like my not taking a position, is that your final position on my not taking a position? My position is that many LPs are not great sounding but many are great sounding even compared to live music, and we attend live performances once or twice a month both in local clubs and at the Kennedy Center. RBCDs are good for when I want to read a book or as background for a party but there’s no way I can listen to them for long if I’m serious about listening. SACDs and the like are better IF they were recorded as SACDs. So in general the silver discs are a yawn. I don’t have RTR, so that’s out. I believe that hi Res digital streaming may outperform LPs. I’m sure hi-rez streaming measures better if done right. I also own 2500 LPs, so I play them. This is a hobby and a source of personal pleasure, not a military exercise.

Some members posting in this thread seem to believe as digital “measures” better than analogue, it must be better and every audiophile should find digital better. I think they are missing a couple of points. 

First, are we measuring the right things, and all of the right things, that affects our emotional response and enjoyment to music reproduced in a system? When CD was introduced, engineers already told us it was “Perfect Sound Forever”, with much lower distortion and wider dynamic range than LP etc. See what happened since than? New type of digital distortion called “jitter” was discovered, which was never measured, or at least not shown in products’ specifications, before. It was certainly new for audiophiles! Now we have DSD, DSD512 etc., and same old story we are still being told it measures better than analogue, so can we be sure no more new types of digital distortions will be discovered in the future? 

The second point is there is a personal side to our reactions to distortions, some of us are just more sensitive to a certain kind of distortion than others. Just to share a recent experience, I and my friend visited another audiophile, who had a high-end digital base system with all the room correction functions etc. While the sound was not my cup of tea, I didn’t hear any obvious distortion. However, after listening for a while, I felt the muscles at the back of my neck tensed up, and with passing time, I felt slight physical pain starting from the back of my ears all the way down the neck! What is interesting is that both the audiophile and my friend didn’t share the feeling！

I want to point out that I rarely have this reaction on audio systems, digital or analogue. The last time I had similar reaction, but a lot less severe, was with a first generation CD player.

The point I want to stress is that since my friend and the audiophile didn’t have the same reaction, I have to conclude that I am just more sensitive to the particular type of distortions in that system. To expand from this, I think it is certainly possible that, we who prefer analogue may just be more sensitive to the types of distortions in digital, even though the “measured” distortion maybe lower! 

Of course, the opposite can also be true, audiophiles who prefer digital may just be more sensitive to distortions in analogue!

Some questions are difficult to answer. Some smart ''.. ''asked the religious

kind: ''Can Almighty make such havy stone which he can't lift?'' 

The 'Debacle' of which Source Material works best for one individual to another is pretty much a fuel source that has been burnt.

There are small pockets of individuals, that can't let the embers burn out, the need to fan the flame and maintain some heat is a seen occurrence, especially when a Thread becomes very focused on the Vinyl LP as a Source and discussions on supporting ancillaries are at the forefront.

I have read a lot on digital replays over many years, and more recently read a lot about the options available to myself on streaming.

From recollections, I can't remember a user of a Vinyl Source, countering the discussions about the virtues of using a Vinyl LP recording, as better choice over a Digital Recording.

Using my own Set Up as a description of how the Two Recording Mediums are used, it is quite simple to Comprehend.

The mechanical designs required for replaying the Vinyl LP have been quite interesting to myself, and for nearly as long as CD has been available as a Source, I have pursued learning about the engineering that is offered with ancillaries required to be used when replaying the Vinyl LP.

I never quite adopted the same stimulus for the ancillaries required to replay CD as a Source.

Today, I run both the CD Source and the Vinyl LP Source in parity to each other, when it comes down to enjoying a replay experience.

The difference is that the ancillaries used for CD, are remaining to be unstimulating to be investigated to see where there is a mechanical improvement to be found. With Vinyl the interest still remains strong, and I am actively pursuing encounters to see what is still to be learned.

In a nutshell, I have adopted Two Mediums, where one medium that I use, has a need for supporting ancillaries that I have a secondary passion for. This as a Medium is the one that become available for mainstream use 64 Years ago in 1948. This is in use, in Parity, with a Digital Medium that become mainstream available 40 Years ago in 1982.

It is hard to see where the two such antiquated mediums, are able to attain such a competitive position toward each other, where each is contested for their superiority of usage.

Interestingly from my end, the Digital Streaming Replay method, which is relevant and off the now, and not as such, an antiquated Medium, does seem to be recognised for being a replay method that is very dependent on ancillaries that are noticeable in the impact they can have on a SQ / Presentation. Learning about the influences of these ancillaries does have a certain stimulus, more so, than CD replay in my case.             

@thekong 

Nicely put. 
 

I am also very sensitive to high frequency distortion and sound floor. I have practically gone running from some systems with my hands clapped over my ears while a couple other folks next to me were overwhelmed with how great the system was (detail at all costs… ? And damaged hearing?.