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Who needs a Diamond Cantilever...? 💍

So suddenly, there seems to be a trend for Uber-LOMC cartridges released with Diamond Cantilevers...😱
As if the High-End MC cartridges were not already overpriced....?!
Orofon have released the MC-ANNA-DIAMOND after previously releasing the Limited Edition MC-CENTURY...also with Diamond Cantilever.
Then there’s the KOETSU BLOODSTONE PLATINUM and DYNAVECTOR KARAT 17D2 and ZYX ULTIMATE DIAMOND and probably several more.

But way back in 1980....Sony released a Diamond-Cantilevered version of its fine XL-88 LOMC Cartridge.
Imaginatively....they named this model the XL-88D and, because it was the most expensive phono cartridge in the world (costing 7500DM which was more expensive than a Volkswagen at the time)....Sony, cleverly disguised this rare beast to look EXACTLY like its ’cheap’ brother with its complex hybrid cantilever of "special light metal held by a carbon-fibre pipe both being held again by a rigid aluminium pipe".
The DIAMOND CANTILEVER on the 88D however......was a thing of BEAUTY and technological achievement, being formed from ONE PIECE OF DIAMOND including the stylus 🤯🙏🏽

I’ve owned the XL-88 for many years and recently discovered that it was my best (and favourite) cartridge when mounted in the heavy Fidelity Research S-3 Headshell on the SAEC WE-8000/ST 12" Tonearm around my VICTOR TT-101 TURNTABLE.
Without knowing this in advance.....I would not have been prepared to bid the extraordinary prices (at a Japanese Auction Site) that these rare cartridges keep commanding.
To find one in such STUNNING CONDITION with virtually no visible wear was beyond my expectations 😃

So how does it sound.....?
Is there a difference to the standard XL-88?
Is the Diamond Cantilever worth the huge price differential?
Is the Pope a Catholic....?

This cartridge simply ’blows my mind’...which is hard to do when I’ve had over 80 cartridges on 10 different arms mounted on two different turntables 🤯
As Syntax said on another Thread:-
When you have 2 identical carts, one regular cantilever and the other one with diamond cantilever (Koetsu Stones for example), the one with diamond cantilever shows more details, is a bit sharper in focus and the soundstage is a bit deeper and wider. They can sound a bit more detailed overall with improved dynamics
I’ll leave it at that for the time being. I will soon upload to YouTube, the sound comparisons between the two Sony versions on my HEAR MY CARTRIDGES THREAD.

But now I’ve bought myself a nightmarish scenario.......
There is no replacement stylus for this cartridge!
There is no replacement cantilever for this cartridge!
Each time I play records with it, I am ’killing’ it a bit more 🥴😥
If I knew how long I had left to live......I could program my ’listening sessions’ 🤪
But failing this.....I can’t help but feel slightly uncomfortable listening to this amazing machine.
128x128halcro
halcro's avatar
halcro OP
2,664 posts
 
Thanks Frogman for your revealing comments about 'Political Correctness' and one-sided 'complaints' to the Moderators.
Thanks also for your, as always....welcome observations between the two Sonys.
not enough has been made of the fact that the cantilever material that is best for one cartridge may not be the best choice for another cartridge that uses a different motor and a different housing; all which contribute to the overall sonic signature of the cartridge as determined by the designer’s goals.
This is true enough and Edgewear's comments are interesting (thanks Edgewear for the kind wishes 😃).....
Having said that.....I do believe that 'choice' of 'cantilever material' may be a 'primary' element in the initial concept of cartridge designers.
As we've already heard.....cartridges such as the Fidelity Research FR-7 Series, the SPUs, the Acoustical Sounds have 'chosen' to use Aluminium as their cantilever material 'of choice' whereas many 'modern' designers have chosen Boron whilst (with the Boron shortage) Sapphire and Ruby are 'returning'.
I say 'returning' because in the past....designers seemed to have a larger selection of, not only materials....but HOW the materials are utilised.
Solid rod, hollow tube, tapered solid rod, tapered tube...hybrid combinations like the Sony Carbon Fibre/Aluminium/Beryllium cantilevers of the normal XL-55 and XL-88.
Can you imagine the design time, prototyping and testing that went into that...?🤯
And not to forget the cantilever material of choice for the high-end MM cartridges of yore....Beryllium 😃

In line with their 'experimental' approach to cantilever hybrid design shown in the XL-55 and 88.....I suspect that Sony's designer Mori San as Nandric reminds us.....was given the freedom to produce a stylus/cantilever of one piece solid diamond as a 'cost-no-object' ultimate design.
He would have needed many convincing arguments...and again....prototyping and testing...to gain approval for production.
And in the end....in this Thread you are hearing two 'identical' cartridges with the 'cantilever material' the only difference 🤗
harold-not-the-barrel
895 posts
 
Very interesting as that will reveal a difference within those materials as such in a well controlled, meticulously prepared environment and situation. A scientific inquiry in, shall we say Halcro´s laboratory.
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halcro OP
2,664 posts
 
😂😂😂
edgewear
543 posts
 
You're welcome, Halcro!

If the assumption that the sound of a cartridge is determined by its performance as a system - built from various part that all have different sonic characteristics  - is correct, than the cantilever is just one of the ingredients to 'tailor' the sound. Just as coil and body materials are, as my little 'shoot out' with the Colibri's  - with boron cantilevers and vdH tip as the only constant - made abundantly clear (I wish I had the opportunity then to record these differences, as Halcro is doing now).

Other manufacturers use the same motor and coils and offer different cantilevers and/or tips as 'options'. Like the obscure Ozawa and Klipsch cartridges I happen to love, which offered aluminum, boron and ruby (and even diamond) cantilevers in otherwise the same carts with identical specs. But they surely will have sounded different, otherwise what's the point? Even today, Matsudaira san offers duraliminum and boron as cantilever options for MySonic Lab. In all these cases the boron versions are more expensive than (dur)aluminum, but does that imply they are better? Not necessarily, just different.

So the use of aluminum cantilever has nothing to do with 'ignorance' on the designer's part (as he who should not be mentioned seems to think), but with deliberate design choices. Sometimes for purely sonic reasons (as with Ikeda, Takeda and Brakemeier), sometimes to deliver different options at different price point (as Matsudaira and many others). Including Mori, who was apparently given 'carte blanche' with the 88D to extract the maximum performance from his 'figure 8' design invention. I'm sure the results are spectacular.


halcro's avatar
halcro OP
2,664 posts
 
Frogman and Edgewear are right of course...As Dover so eloquently observed....
Cartridges are always a sum of the parts - a diamond cantilever on an average cartridge is at best just a more articulate average cartridge.
The XL-55 and XL-88 obviously have a unique MOTOR design by Mori San.....but why they sound so differently to each other is a mystery only Mori could explain 🤭
When all other Diamond Cantilevers are two-piece constructions like THIS and THIS and THIS........there might also be some Mori 'magic' when he can imagine Diamond Cantilever and Stylus as a one-piece construction like THIS 🤗
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