What is the “World’s Best Cartridge”?

The idea of Raul and Ralph kissing is to say the least, not attractive. 

Dear @mijostyn : " we all listen in analog. "

Not really but it’s what we all always think about. Exist a lot of evidence that one way or the other our organism: brain/body " listen in " digital ".

Thtat could be controversial too because goes against what we " learned " that in reality do not learned in formal way. Take a look to this first evidence where you can read: ( the link of how the ears works will be at the end of this post:):

 

"" this membrane is in contact with the cilia on the top of the hair cells. There are two kinds of hair cells. The outer hair cells are the actual receptors. When the tectorial membrane moves, so does the hair on the the outer cells. This movement is then encoded into electrical digital signals and goes to the brain through the cochlear nerve. and.....................................................

 

With the hair cells, we come to the end of the audio path inside the ear. Hair cells are neurons, and the purpose of the outer hair cells is to convert the mechanical vibrations that come from their cilia into nerve signals. Such signals are binary (all or nothing), and seem to be completely decorrelated from the analogue signals to which they correspond. In other words, they’re digital signals, and the inner hair cells are analogue‑to‑digital converters. ""

 

I posted in this thread that we listen through all our body: bones, skin, hair, etc, etc , etc ( that’s why we can " listen " very deep/low bass sensing its vibrations that are communicated to the brain by high speed electric impulses ( not goes in a row/continuous way. ) by neuro transmiters/nerves terminations that exist in our whole internal/external/body and obviously some information goes to the brain trhough our ears and goes in digital way.

All our internal/external body/organs works through those high speed electric impulses. How is the communication inside the brain or how a neurologist specialist knows if something is wrong down there: normally through an encephalogram that measures the electrical activity of the brain showed in a graphic/diagram that was achieved by that digital electrical activity and same happens with our heart that works too by electrical impulses and that’s what a cardiologist looks through the chart coming from an electrocardiogram study.

 

There are more evidences that we don’t listen in analog but for me those is enough:

 

R.

I had a customer who was phobic and often listened whilst checking his prostate. He often gave seat of the pants opinions on sound quality. Perhaps you could explain is he listening in analogue or digital ?

Have you had the wax removed from your ears ?

More related information about hearing/sound:

 

 

"" A crucial event in the hearing process is the transduction of mechanical stimuli into electrical signals by hair cells, the sensory receptors of the internal ear. Stimulation results in the rapid opening of ionic channels in the mechanically sensitive organelles of these cells, their hair bundles. These transduction channels, which are nonselectively permeable, are directly excited by hair-bundle displacement. """

 

 

""" Bone-conducted ultrasonic hearing has been found capable of supporting frequency discrimination and speech detection in normal, older hearing-impaired, and profoundly deaf human subjects. When speech signals were modulated into the ultrasonic range, listening to words resulted in the clear perception of the speech stimuli and not a sense of high-frequency vibration. """

 

 

""" 

There's Life Above 20 Kilohertz!
A Survey of Musical Instrument Spectra to 102.4 KHz

---

James Boyk
California Institute of Technology
Music Lab, 0-51 Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
Tel: +626 395-4590, E-mail: boyk@caltech.edu
Home: http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~musiclab

Copyright © 1992, 1997 James Boyk. All rights reserved.

 " Each musical instrument family — strings, winds, brass and percussion — has at least one member which produces energy to 40 kHz or above. Some of the spectra reach this work's measurement limit of 102.4 kHz.
       Harmonics of French horn can extend to above 90 kHz; trumpet, to above 80; violin and oboe, to above 40; and a cymbal crash shows no sign of running out of energy at 100 kHz. Also shown in this paper are samples from sibilant speech, claves, a drum rimshot, triangle, jangling keys, and piano.
       The proportion of energy above 20 kilohertz is low for most instruments; but for one trumpet sample it is 2%; for another, 0.5%; for claves, 3.8%; for a speech sibilant, 1.7%; and for the cymbal crash, 40%. The cymbal's energy shows no sign of stopping at the measurement limit, so its percentage may be much higher.
      The spectra in this paper were found by recording each instrument's sound into a spectrum analyzer, then "prospecting" moment by moment through the recordings. Two instruments (clarinet and vibraphone) showed no ultrasonics, and so are absent here. Other instruments' sounds extended high up though at low energy. A few combined ultrasonic extension with power.
      The mere existence of this energy is the point of this paper, and most of the discussion just explains why I think that the spectra are correct, within the limits described below. At the end, however, I cite others' work on perception of air- and bone-conducted ultrasound, and offer a few remarks on the possible relevance of our spectra to human perception and music recording.

Given the existence of musical-instrument energy above 20 kilohertz, it is natural to ask whether the energy matters to human perception or music recording. The common view is that energy above 20 kHz does not matter, but AES preprint 3207 by Oohashi et al. claims that reproduced sound above 26 kHz "induces activation of alpha-EEG (electroencephalogram) rhythms that persist in the absence of high frequency stimulation, and can affect perception of sound quality." [4]
      Oohashi and his colleagues recorded gamelan to a bandwidth of 60 kHz, and played back the recording to listeners through a speaker system with an extra tweeter for the range above 26 kHz. This tweeter was driven by its own amplifier, and the 26 kHz electronic crossover before the amplifier used steep filters. The experimenters found that the listeners' EEGs and their subjective ratings of the sound quality were affected by whether this "ultra-tweeter" was on or off, even though the listeners explicitly denied that the reproduced sound was affected by the ultra-tweeter, and also denied, when presented with the ultrasonics alone, that any sound at all was being played.
      From the fact that changes in subjects' EEGs "persist in the absence of high frequency stimulation," Oohashi and his colleagues infer that in audio comparisons, a substantial silent period is required between successive samples to avoid the second evaluation's being corrupted by "hangover" of reaction to the first.
      The preprint gives photos of EEG results for only three of sixteen subjects. I hope that more will be published.  ""

 

 

 

Abstract

At least one member of each instrument family (strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion) produces energy to 40 kHz or above, and the spectra of some instruments reach this work's measurement limit of 102.4 kHz. Harmonics of muted trumpet extend to 80 kHz; violin and oboe, to above 40 kHz; and a cymbal crash was still strong at 100 kHz. In these particular examples, the proportion of energy above 20 kHz is, for the muted trumpet, 2 percent; violin, 0.04 percent; oboe, 0.01 percent; and cymbals, 40 percent. Instruments surveyed are trumpet with Harmon ("wah-wah") and straight mutes; French horn muted, unmuted and bell up; violin sul ponticello and double-stopped; oboe; claves; triangle; a drum rimshot; crash cymbals; piano; jangling keys; and sibilant speech. A discussion of the significance of these results describes others' work on perception of air- and bone-conducted ultrasound; and points out that even if ultrasound be taken as having no effect on perception of live sound, yet its presence may still pose a problem to the audio equipment designer and recording engineer.

Dear friends: Normally I don’t give answers to stupid posts.

Anyway I would like to comment this:

 

this thread is about phono cartridges that are used to track LPs: Rigth?, the forum name is " Analog " not LPs: Rigth?, almost all the audiophiles that posted in this thread if not all has an analog rig that use to listen LPs: Rigth? all of us accepted that analog rig means: TT/tonearm/cartridge ( at least and some times + phono stage preamp). Rigth? when ML posted the word " complete " was in reference to listen LPs: Rigth?, here in Agon when any one of us speaks of analog is in reference to LPs: Rigth?

In one of my last two posts any one can read:

 

"" Btw, normally when I talk of analog I’m reffering mainly to the LP alternative. ""

 

As a fact I almost never talk of tape in Agon but LPs, cartridges, tonearms, phono stages, turntables, tonearm/cartridge alignments, tonearm/cartridge parameters set up and the like.

Here I was and am talking of the quality superiority of the digital alternative over the LP alternative.

 

" walk into a record store to know that isn’t true- if it were true they wouldn’t sell LPs! "

 

and of course that can’t compete vs digital alternative NO MATTERS WHAT.

 

In a wine store I can buy a California Red Wine and in the same store a Chateau Lafite but the California wine can’t compete against the higher quality Lafite wine ! ! ! ? ? ?

 

Silly, for say the least.

 

R.