How old is your cartridge?

Any serious driving enthusiast knows the single biggest factor in new car ride and handling is the suspension and motor mounts are all brand new elastomer. Some of them have gotten pretty sophisticated over the years but with older cars its a relatively simple process to change these things out. After a good 15 years its guaranteed to make a solid positive difference. Even just sitting in the garage the darn things wear and settle resulting in imprecise suspension geometry and slop and play under load. 

As usual this is not from parroting blather others spouted its from actually having done the work replacing these things on a 240Z and a 911. Heed the words of experience. 

Like I said, this is one of those things that sure seems it has to be the same with cartridges. Only it never seems to work out that way. Probably because this is but one very small item on a very long list of items determining sound quality. Maybe something to do with there being some sort of difference between a car that weighs a ton and a cantilever that's some tiny fraction of a gram? 

Any decent engineer should be able to tell the difference. You'd a thunk.

A Grado G1 mounted in a headshell and kept as a spare. 30+ years old.

I want to remind to all of you guys that Nagaoka (adored by many for some unknown reasons here) has a very stiff suspension and it’s a new cartridge, dynamic compliance of this Moving Permalloy cartridge is about 7cu @ 100Hz, remember that Denon DL-103 compliance is 5cu @ 100Hz ! The difference is very small, indeed.

So a brand new Nagaoka MP series, designed in 21st century for modern tonearms, is a low compliance cartridge (about 7 cu @ 100Hz) depends on the model, some of them are even stiffer just like DL-103, look at this Nagaoka with 5.5 cu @ 100Hz dynamic compliance!

An old DENON-103 designed in the 60s for super heavy tonearms is 5 cu @ 100Hz and every dog knows this is the lowest possible compliance on the planet!

Can you believe it ?

Now I want to remind you that classic MM cartridges like Shure are HIGH COMPLIANCE, some classic MM from the golden era are as high as 25 cu @ 100Hz. It’s nearly 5 times higher than Denon or Nagaoka!

Convert it to 10Hz and you will realize that a compliance of some great MM is 30cu - 50cu at 10Hz.

Even if you think the rubber getting stiffer, then, even after 40 years these high compliance MM cartridges are STILL HIGH COMPLIANCE. Believe it or not, you can actually measure it!

And your adorable NEW cartridges from NAGAOKA is a LOW COMPLIANCE from the start (very low for MP cartridge), why? Maybe you have to worry about NEW MM cartridges more than about an old ones? This is too stiff right out of the box from your favorite shop, how can you live with that?  

Think about it, before you will post anything about stiff suspension on 40 y.o. cartridges, especially when you want to mention an MM or MI design.

I just bought a 40-year-old cartridge.

Glupson, it is probably deaf by now.

The suspension of a cartridge is not subjected to the environment atrocities that an automotive suspension is. Most of them are made with synthetic rubber that has a longer life span.

The only ways I have had cartridges fail is the stylus disappearing fortunately covered under warranty and the tiny wires of a MC cartridge breaking due to work hardening. I have never worn out a stylus probably because there is always the next better cartridge. 

Right now I have two brand new ones, a Clearaudio Charisma and a Soundsmith The Voice. Like Chakster I am down on moving coil cartridges. I think they are a rip off. If I turn out to like The Voice (still in the box) I might give his Strain Gauge a try.