Dynavector cartridges, old and new

Dear @lewm : ""  The motion of the stylus has to be transmitted to coils or magnets in order for transduction to occur. ""

Rigth and for that happens it needs that exist some kind of compliance for the stylus track LP grooves, normally through a cantilever that's the way till today.

Manufacturers and audiophiles use the cantileverless expression but not to really says is cantilever-less but to make some differentation to the normal cartridges design.

With no compliance for movements exist no recorded signal to transducer motor cartridge.

Obviously that the horizontal compliance is way critical but the vertical one has a role too. Normally the compliance figure in many cartridges designs is the same but in other cartridge designs the compliance values are different for horizontal motion than vertical one.

Compliance and cantilever length are very important in the quality cartridge performance but the cantilever shape and build material ti's too because we are talking here about vibrations/movements added by resonances developed down there that all are converted to music signal.

A shorter cantilever resonates and vibrates different from a longer one and not neccesarily better than the longer cantilever but cantilever build material makes always a difference because boron and diamond has different characteristics that has influence in what we listen.

There are several cartridges that outperforms the Karat 13D or the Ikeda REX 9 or the Decca's. A cartridge is the sum of its parts: overall design, part's quality, quality  excecution of design and cartridge voicing. At the end a cartridge is the exclusive success achieved by the own designer targets and how he looks MUSIC reproduction by his design and how he surrounded it in the audio systems he used to made the cartridge voicing.

R.

I think we pretty much agree on this, Raul.

Raul, sure there are cartridges that outperform Karat 13D or even Decca Reference in certain environment but not necessarely in all high tech stereo systems. There are so many different combinations of TAs, TTs and cartridges that even good old Michael can´t tell the truth.

The 13D was made for US market only, it was a special development of the 17D according to the interview with its designer (Tominari-San):

" At first when I tried short cantilevers I worked in sapphire or ruby and their resonance dictates a length of 2.5mm. But in Diamond, it is possible to use 1.7mm. We even made a very special product for the US high end market with a cantilever only 1.3mm long, and called the Karat 13D. It was our flagship model and sold nearly 60 pieces in America. The 17D was the first diamond cantilevered cartridge that we made, and the 13D was a very special development of it, using a special body and headshell arrangement. " - Dr. Tominari (Dynavector Systems)

Dyna cartridges such as XX1 (first) with Flux-Damper and later all Dynavectors cartridges "involves winding a wire around the front yoke of the cartridge. Experiments showed that movement of the coils was generating a voltage in the yoke which in turn effects the linearity of the magnetic flux. It is this that makes many poor movingcoil designs sound thin and irritating. By short circuiting the yoke we prevent this happening, which leads to a much smoother and more natural high frequency balance. The effect is quite noticeable, which is why we put a switch on the XX1, so that people could hear the effect." - Dr. Tominari (Dynavector Systems)

Speaking of the further development of the mighty Dynavectors such as XV1 and Te-Kaitora i would say that the long boron cantilever looks unprotected and extremely fragile. I would avoid using such cartridges for practical reason, but it’s just me.