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Hear my Cartridges....🎶

Many Forums have a 'Show your Turntables' Thread or 'Show your Cartridges' Thread but that's just 'eye-candy'.... These days, it's possible to see and HEAR your turntables/arms and cartridges via YouTube videos.
Peter Breuninger does it on his AV Showrooms Site and Michael Fremer does it with high-res digital files made from his analogue front ends.
Now Fremer claims that the 'sound' on his high-res digital files captures the complex, ephemeral nuances and differences that he hears directly from the analogue equipment in his room.
That may well be....when he plays it through the rest of his high-end setup 😎
But when I play his files through my humble iMac speakers or even worse.....my iPad speakers.....they sound no more convincing than the YouTube videos produced by Breuninger.
Of course YouTube videos struggle to capture 'soundstage' (side to side and front to back) and obviously can't reproduce the effects of the lowest octaves out of subwoofers.....but.....they can sometimes give a reasonably accurate IMPRESSION of the overall sound of a system.

With that in mind.....see if any of you can distinguish the differences between some of my vintage (and modern) cartridges.
VICTOR X1
This cartridge is the pinnacle of the Victor MM designs and has a Shibata stylus on a beryllium cantilever. Almost impossible to find these days with its original Victor stylus assembly but if you are lucky enough to do so.....be prepared to pay over US$1000.....🤪
VICTOR 4MD-X1
This cartridge is down the ladder from the X1 but still has a Shibata stylus (don't know if the cantilever is beryllium?)
This cartridge was designed for 4-Channel reproduction and so has a wide frequency response 10Hz-60KHz.
Easier to find than the X1 but a lot cheaper (I got this one for US$130).
AUDIO TECHNICA AT ML180 OCC
Top of the line MM cartridge from Audio Technica with Microline Stylus on Gold-Plated Boron Tube cantilever.
Expensive if you can find one....think US$1000.

I will be interested if people can hear any differences in these three vintage MM cartridges....
Then I might post some vintage MMs against vintage and MODERN LOMC cartridges.....🤗
128x128halcro
schubert
7,386 posts
 
EVERY Acutex cart sounded good , even the ones who cost 10 bucks a pop if dealer bought a hundred at a time in the 70’s !
frogman loves words as much(almost?) as music , not unusual in artists but his expression skill is .Often an intelligent person like him who is not a native speaker of English has studied the language to a much higher level than those of us who just picked it up at moms knee .
There is a cliff you fall over , a door that opens, after you hear X time of LIVE acoustic music where all the pieces just
fall together like it does to a puzzle freak with 50 years at the card table under their belt .

frogman
7,472 posts
 
Wow!  Thanks for the nice comments, gentlemen.  And this in spite of the fact that I once mistook halcro’s phone ringtones for an electronic keyboard; ringing perfectly in time to the music.  Glad I was able to regain some cred 😊. 
halcro's avatar
halcro OP
2,664 posts
 
I admit to being a little surprised by how the London Decca Reference beat the Fidelity Research FR-7f LOMC in the 'Love Letters' Test because the FR-7f is a great cartridge.....

Let's try the LDR against my second Signet TK-7LCa with a NOS original stylus.
This stylus is so new....it has less than 3 hours play-time on it 🤗

SIGNET TK-7LCa MM Cartridge
Mounted in vintage Fidelity Research FR-66S on TW Acustic AC-2 Belt-Drive Turntable.

LONDON DECCA REFERENCE MI Cartridge
Mounted in vintage Fidelity Research FR-66S on TW Acustic AC-2 Belt-Drive Turntable.
Post removed 
frogman
7,472 posts
 
Halcro, I seem to recall reading that you use a pair of subs?
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