Do You Play Or Save Your Best Cartridges

I play my best cartridge, a Lyra Skala, and keep a Clavis Da Capo and AT OC9 II as spares in the eventuality the Skala needs work or gives up the ghost.

what does a 10,000 dollar cartridge do better than a $1,000 one?

@grislybutter There are so many variable in analog playback, this will never be sufficiently answered. However at some point the price comes down enough that it dictates materials, design, and assembly choices which are less than optimal. It’s not that they can’t sound good in the right setup, it’s that something more expensive or exotic *could* sound better. At $1000:

• Aluminum pipe cantilever is almost a given. Boron cantilevers are very rare here. Cantilever has a big impact on sound. Aluminum is generally considered warmer, and boron more detailed / clean sounding.
• Neodymium magnets. Alnico / platinum / permendur / samarium-cobalt magnets are not seen at this price point. Magnet absolutely has a significant impact on the sound. Neodymiums are generally punchy but brash compared to the more velvety smooth sound from exotic magnets.
• Body material - noting exotic here; you’re lucky to get aluminum. But you’re more likely to get some kind of plastic, resin wood, or delrin. Bodies are a more subtle impact than magnet or cantilever, but still there.
• Coil and motor assembly. Being handmade, there is much variation in production. Many manufactures select the "best" finished motors for their higher end models. The lower grade motors get earmarked for the $1000 models :)
• Stylus - I’m not too hung up on stylus, as I think even a nude elliptical can sound exceptional. But it definitely NEEDS to be a nude shank, high quality diamond. Bonded tips suck.

You can certainly find used cartridges and "deals" for new cartridges at $1000 that sound awesome. But for me (and others) the "what if" drives us to try more and more exotic examples too. Yes - there are nuances, subtleties, and refinements that make the expense worthwhile (to us, sometimes). But a properly setup and matched $1000 "good deal" cartridge can definitely sound badass too :) In a 2nd system I’m now running a Benz Wood I got off here for $1000, and it really doesn’t give up THAT much to the exotic big rig (with the $10K+ cart). But the little Benz has definitely been provided the "right" partners in arm and phono stage - that’s absolutely crucial. The Ortofon Cadenza Red is another near-$1K cartridge I’ve really liked a lot in the past.

@mulveling @clearthinker

thanks! Sounds wild!

@terry9 I guess the rest of t he setup would be just as expensive

I still play a vintage cart (that's better than most reasonably priced stuff today). If it fails, it fails...eventually it will. In the meantime I will enjoy it.

A different one in my main system. And I have several others whose whereabouts I don't know. A drawer somewhere.

@grislybutter "I guess the rest of the setup would be just as expensive"

Unless you DIY. I like to budget for something pretty good, like a 10-20k turntable or a 5k tonearm, and see what I can do with that money. That’s led me to an air bearing TT with a very stiff air cushion in all three dimensions, and a superbly isolated motor which I may patent. That took me 3 years. Of fun.

Then I did the tonearm, again air bearing, linear tracker, another 3 years. I am currently experimenting with wands - I’ve had a sapphire tube on hold for 2 years because I have some useful thoughts on resonance control with a lightweight wand. So far, so good. I can adjust tangentiality (LT analogue of overhang) on-the-fly to 5 microns. VTA adjusts repeatably to 2 minutes of arc, azimuth also 2 minutes of arc. The only ’off-the-fly’ adjustment is VTF, which is adjustable to 10 mg.

When you have that much adjustability, you can get the most from a cartridge, and quite a lot it is, if the Mayajima and Koetsu are anything to go by. I’m fabricating a wand now for a Grado Lineage, we’ll see how that goes.

I think DIY is better than buying. It’s certainly a lot more fun.

DIY forever!!

@terry9

if you have the skills. I am only good at breaking things :)

why drink the same wine….every day….. ?

Uh - because it's Romanee - Conti?

@grislybutter You may surprise yourself. You don't need to do everything yourself - I sure don't. I buy off-the-shelf whenever I can.

Prefer to just design and assemble, but sometimes a craftsman can't think of how to do it, or is too expensive. Why not try something easy? Like a cartridge? (joke).

before i went 2 far with the false precision, might check the Grado stylus / cantilever alignment…. But, when ya get a good one…magic midrange…. but again….. why enjoy the same wine / food pairing every…..day ?

Heretic!

Not that I've ever had one - what are they these days, 20k? And then there's the 25 years+ of aging ...

About precision, it means you can adjust by ear to whatever sounds best. No-one, not even a Grado, can align a stylus to a cartridge body to within a few minutes of arc. And those are the sort of adjustments which I sometimes make, to allow for different records.

especially not a Grado…. of course…..one of my assignments…long ago… was picking thru the incoming Grado and play grading them….. let’s just kindly say they defined variability…..

pasquale Grado lived upstairs…but i guess that’s a different story / bottle of wine

Good thing I didn't hear that before it arrived. The one I have has absolutely superb fit and finish.

@tomic601:

Nope, Decca's defined variability ;-) . The London's not nearly as much so.

Save it 7ntil what, your hearing begins to degrade due to age? I’m with the gent that said “use it, then buy another” and in the camp of (loosely) “listen to the best regardless of mood”

Have to be bonkers to want to change cartridges more than you have to.  Each time you do that there is a small but finite chance you will damage it  - brushing against the stylus with a sleeve or any number of ways. Plus it is a PITA to do .

If this is an obsession for you, I'd suggest buying one of the tables that allow mounting of more than one arm so you can have a casual music arm and a best audiophile arm/cartridge.

That’s right, don’t think about enjoying a cartridge. Put it into a glass cage and admire it instead.

What the? You enjoy life by living it. Same goes for audio gear. Enjoy them while they’re being used. Otherwise what’s the point of ownership.
 

Don’t allow fear to rule your life. 

It seems I am in a minority by using my best cartridge sparingly. But don't worry, I don't have to change cartridges several times a day, I have two turntables, and if only the courier would get a move on I would have two tonearms on each. So I can have my best moving iron mounted (and used sparingly, as it is not at all clear that the new owner of londondecca.com will be there when it next needs a rebuild), and my next best moving iron, plus my best MC and finally a mono version of it. Being spoilt for choice isn't such a bad thing!

@dogberry I fully empathise with your concern for having a access to a rebuild for a Cart'.

I lost access to a exceptional Third Party Cartridge Service as a result of Brexit, the Technician was not interested in all the new requirements associated with the to and from shipping and reduced the customer base.

A real shame and a fair proportion of testimonials given on the Web Site were from UK Based Customers.

I feel confident, I am back on track when the time comes, but a trusted workmanship, is a luxury.

@bdp24 well as you well know… neither Grado nor Decca had a monopoly on the far reaching tails of the variability curve…. As a Signet dealer, we had ( more properly were REQUIRED to have a fine German microscope for cartridge evaluation, as PART of.. ).. Plenty of storied brands struggle to meet the published specifications….. Volumes could be written…. ah hem…. were… Deming, Juran….

i digress….

@dogberry I don’t think you are doing it wrong at all…. now where did i put that….5th tonearm ?……

If I have it, I use it. If I love it, I'll buy another one to replace the current one when it's done. 

I would agree with 'use the best you have'.  If a person has an 'ear for music' then why wouldn't you want to hear the best you can?  Of course it all comes down to how deep a person's pockets are but you still have to have a passion for it.  You can be a millionaire but if you don't care then a $500 system might be good enough. Depending on what your priorities are, usually a person will buy the best they can afford.

Depends on the LP. I won't use my best cartridge on some of my cherished albums from my youth long, long ago. I only have one  cartridge with a conical stylus for 78s and it's sure not my best one. Besides, from time to time a change is nice. Then when I switch back to my favorite AT33PTG/2 (which is not my most expensive MC) I only appreciate her more. She must just have a special synergy in my system. Since the PTG was designed strictly for the Japanese market, I am not so sure I will be able to replace her whe the time comes.

I have two cartridges that are retired. One of them will get retiiped as a back up. I have a new cartridge (just 130 hrs on it as I type this), and it’s the best one I’ve ever had. That is all I will use until it wears out and needs to go back for a rebuild. Then I’ll bring out the backup while I wait.