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Pani ... New ART-9 up and running ...

The Cartridge arrived and I took it down to Studio City to Acoustic Image to have Eliot Midwood set it up properly. Eliot is the bomb when it comes to setting up the Well Tempered turn tables correctly.

http://www.acousticimage.com/

So, last night I had Mr. Golden Ears over to get his assessment as well. For a brand new cartridge that had zero hours on it ... all I can say is WOW! This is one naturally musical cartridge that doesn't break the bank. Its everything I liked about the OC9-mk III, but it goes far beyond the OC-9 in every respect.

In a previous post, I talked about the many mono records I own and how good the OC-9 was with the monos. Well, the ART-9 is on steroids. Just amazing on mono recordings.

At under $1100.00 from LP Tunes, its a bargain. The ART-9 surpasses all cartridges I've had in the system before. That would include Dynavectors, Benz, Grado Signatures and a Lyra Clavis that I dearly loved. In fact, its more musically correct than the Clavis. The Clavis was the champ at reproducing the piano correctly ... the ART-9 is equally as good in this area.

Sound stage, depth of image, left to right all there. Highs ... crystalline. Mids ... female and male voices are dead on. Transparency ... see through. Dynamics ... Wow! Low noise floor ... black. Mono records ... who needs stereo?

Your assessment that the ART-9 doesn't draw attention to itself is dead on. You just don't think about the cartridge at all. Not what its doing, or what its not doing ... its just beautiful music filling the room.

Thanks again Pani for the recommendation. I'll keep posting here as the cartridge continues to break in.
128x128oregonpapa
fleib
1,124 posts
 
Oregonpapa,
If you have tons of mono records, you might want to consider a mono cart. A stereo cart, no matter how good, can't compete with a true mono cart. Your ART9 or OC9 might have better resolution than a particular mono cart, but it also has differences between channels that at best, get blended rather than eliminated.

That difference includes phase, crosstalk, noise, antiskate, etc, are virtually eliminated with a mono cart. The absence of output for vertical movement does away with a lot of noise on mono records. It also eliminates the affects of pinch effect - vertical tip displacement in-groove.
Besides the usual mono carts, I've read that any Soundsmith cart can be ordered in mono. I bought the inexpensive MONO3 to check this out for myself. It doesn't have the resolution of my better stereo carts, but it does have superior presentation on mono.
Regards,
bill_k
909 posts
 
Fleib - With all due respect I would beg to differ with you on one point. I don't have much experience with mono carts, but I don't think that skating forces are eliminated (or even virtually so) with a mono cartridge. Skating forces are inherent due to the physics of a pivoted tonearm tracking the groove, and I don't believe that they would be impacted by the signal being mono instead of stereo. Please correct me if I'm wrong by providing some supporting documentation. Thanks in advance for your time.
chakster's avatar
chakster
6,144 posts
 
How do you guys dealing with mono tip radious for different pressing if your cartridge is MC?

- 1mil. tip for mono records with a 1mil groove pressed pre-1967 (or
thereabouts, the date is not exact)

- and 0.7mil tip for post-1967 mono pressings with the smaller 0.7mil groove, including modern pressings.

Here you can read about it in recent review on Miyajima mono:
http://www.miyajima-lab.com/MiyajimaZeroHFWJul15.pdf
fleib
1,124 posts
 
Bill K,
Skating force is not eliminated with mono carts. Quite simply, because there is only one channel output which is duplicated, it does not contribute to a difference between channels like in stereo.

Regards,
fleib
1,124 posts
 
Chakster,
That would depend on your records. I think most of us have re-issues, but pre '67 pressings is misleading. The microgroove was introduced in '48 and adopted willy-nilly mostly through the '50s. However, if you have older wide groove mono, you're right. A .7mil (18um) tip could bottom out. Here's an explanation:
http://ortofon.com/hifi/products/mono-series

There are a couple of SPU and Miyajima models with appropriate tips. If you're looking for something inexpensive to play an older record, an OM-D25M might fill the bill:
http://www.lpgear.com/product/OROMD25M.html

I don't know much about it - just saw it listed. If it can take regular OM tips, it might be a good, versatile cart. The caveat is VTF/compliance. With the big spherical it's made for heavy tracking. Reg OM tips are much higher cu.
Regards,
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