The Arm/Cartridge Matching Myth

1. A cartridge's Frequency response is unaltered by the Arm/Cartridge Resonant Frequency just as I predicted
2. There is not ONE Peer-Reviewed accepted Scientific White Paper proving the existence, extent or affects on the audible experience due to a mismatched Arm/Cartridge Resonant Frequency
3. When trying to find one.....Atmasphere produces a quaint, anachronistic 63 year-old UNSCIENTIFIC paper on TURNTABLES hoping you won't read it.....because it concludes exactly what I have been saying.
4. Atmasphere claims it was easy to find this 'evidence' (I'll bet it was) and that there are many more out there.....Please please show us.....🤥
5. When forced to admit the article he had posted proved my case....he then retreated to his usual vague unrelated parables

There are several threads on how to reduce woofers from flopping about when playing LPs on this site. and with a lot of loudspeakers if you play material that is too low, the woofers will not sound right as they flop about.

• None of these ardent adherents can actually SHOW you what mistracking and woofer-pumping (due to resonant Frequency) actually looks and sounds like.
• None of them has the guts to demonstrate these artefacts on my dozens of YOUTUBE VIDEOS with mismatched Resonant Frequencies where you can hear and SEE the woofers (note to Mijostyn)
• They will all claim that I may not be able to hear any problems but they are there nevertheless
• But THEY are totally unable to hear or see the problems on my actual videos
• They will then claim that the Videos are not of sufficient quality to hear any of the artefacts despite the fact than delicate, nuanced differences between ALL my cartridges are easily able to be discerned by many Posters on my Hear My Cartridges Thread

what happens at the resonance frequency? One important characteristic of resonance is that motions are magnified considerably, in this case, typically from 2 to 10 times. 

In both situations, the output from resonance frequency signals in the groove will be increased from 6 to 20 dB. These numbers are just the dB equivalent of the magnification numbers previously mentioned. By itself, this may not be all bad, since this resonance peak determines the low-frequency response "limit" of the pickup and system, and a bit of boost here may not be unpleasant. This was certainly true fifteen years ago, when arm resonance frequencies of 30 to 50 Hz were common. However, with modern pickups and arms, these resonance frequencies are usually subsonic (below 20 Hz), so that reproduction by the loudspeakers may cause distortion. Additionally, preamp overload is most likely to occur at boosted low frequencies since the preamp clipping level is lowest here. Consequently, the arm resonance has lost whatever usefulness it once had and must now be regarded as a liability.

The most pernicious effect of the resonance is shown in Figures 1 and 2 by the "scrubbing" notion developed by the stylus in the groove. This causes program material to warble in pitch, just as if the turntable speed were fluctuating. In fact, the groove speed is changing (relative to the tip), because a fraction of the velocity of arm vibration is added to the groove velocity. (See Appendix I.) The effect is that about 1/3 of the arm vibration velocity is alternately added to and subtracted from the groove speed. For example, at arm resonance, total amplitudes of 1/32" are easily observed by eye. If the frequency is 8 Hz (typical for high compliance pickups and average arms), the resonance velocity will be about 2 cm/sec (see Appendix II). This velocity will produce a "scrubbing" velocity of 0.6 cm/sec along the groove axis. The groove speed at a 4.5 inch radius is about 40 cm/sec; so the frequency modulation will be about 0.6/40 = 1.5% and easily audible.

Another less obvious consequence of the arm resonance is that the stylus force is "used up" when the arm is vibrating. In the previous example, if the compliance of the pickup is assumed to be 20 x 10-6 cm/dyne, 2.0 grams of stylus force will be required to accommodate the arm vibration alone. This is larger than the usual stylus force, so mistracking is quite certain at the extremes of the vibration.

Recently I bought a very good looking rather long tone arm made in Japan around the ’70s. Suddenly the bass response is very different. What happened ?

It sounds like you bought a 12 inch Fidelity Research arm with probably even silver wiring inside. These arms were made for the, in those days, very famous cartridges of the same company, like the FR-1 and later FR-7.
These cartridges had a stiff suspension and worked with a tracking force of around 2.0 gram or even more. The compliance (flexibility) of the suspension was not very high. But with some extra coupled weight around (your heavy arm) the basic resonance frequency of cartridge and arm would be around 10 Hz.

Your actual cartridge has a much higher compliance and already tracks well at 1.35 - 1.50 gramf. So the heavy arm combined with the softer spring (the suspension’s steel wire and rubber together) resonates at a much lower frequency and at a higher amplitude - like 5 Hz. The sonic result is that a lot of extra energy of your power amplifier is used to move your woofer at around 5 Hz and the real bass is gone.
Lesson: Never match what is not made for each other. New arm designs are made for today’s cartridges with a dynamic compliance of 10 - 15 μm/mN. The other way around is also a fact of live: For instance your SME Series V will not work so well with the Fidelity Research FR-1 because the compliance of this cartridge is too low here. So the resonance frequency of the cartridge/arm combination (see Appendix 2) is too high and your bass reproduction is too strong. The whole acts as

a low frequency resonator at around 25 - 30 Hz, so the output at these frequencies is also higher. But even worse is the fact that the tracking ability of your cartridge is gone. This because any resonating cartridge/arm combination already causes a healthy number of microns in excursion at the stylus. So what’s left is for your music. And in worst case that is not much.

So, sudden tracking problems are partly caused by uncontrolled low frequency resonances. A way to solve this problem is a reduction of the headshell mass. And also some fluid damping can help, but ONLY when you play flat records. Otherwise the cure causes your cartridge to age faster than you age yourself.