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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
lewm
13,021 posts
 
Raul, the accepted rationale for why low output moving coil cartridges sound better than high output moving coil cartridges has to do with the moving of the coil itself. In other words lower effective mass. However, that same reasoning does not apply to moving magnet or induced magnet cartridges, where of course the coil isn’t moving at all. So do you still think the amount of coil in the wire of a moving magnet cartridge is a major determinant of its sound quality? If so, due to inductance? At any rate it is not due to moving the mass of the coil.
nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 
Parts, wholes and language. Putting together similar things is
called ''aggregation'' while putting together  different things
is called ''coalition'' or composition. Whomever invested his money
in different assets made an composition of them. ''Curiously''
musical works are not only called ''compositions'' but also
''art''. Do we call mathematics ''art'' or ''science''? Confronted with,
say,  many variables they invented ''formulae'' to deal with them.
Those can't be expressed in ordinary language. Why? Because
of limitation to ''x is P'' sentence form. There are obvious limitations
to what one can say in this sentence form . More in particular relations  which we try to express by parts and wholes. Frege proposed to threat relations as functions with 2 or more ''arguments''.  But we are not able to handle sentences with many
''subjects'' as ''x is P'' demonstrate. All our ''threads'' are about
''some subject'' such that members should limit their contributions
to the ''subject in casu''. Why is ''devition form the subject matter''
called ''deviation? 



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rauliruegas
13,051 posts
 
Dear @terry9  : Maybe you are rigth maybe not . I think that the glue could be a kind of damping to those stong forces developed not only by the groove modulations but by the friction of the stylus tip, I don't know.

Perhaps only a cartridge designer/manufacturer can pút some ligth about.

In a cartridge design/build every single part counts for the better or degrading the overall design.

What's more or less clear to me is that the synthetic diamond per sé makes not the touted differences against an extreme good cantilever material as boron.

Anyway, with out a post of experts as @jcarr  we really can't know about, at least not me.

R.
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rauliruegas
13,051 posts
 
Dear @lewm  : ZYX, Vdh and other cartridge manufacturers use: cooper, silver and gold coil wire models and the owners experienced different kind of quality levels in the reproduced sound ( models with the same output. ).

All those owners experiences/facts shows the critical importance of the coil wire quality and not only that but the coil shape and obviously the length of that coil wire that as shorter the best.

Any wire in any audio high end application degrades the audio signal so as shorter the lower " damage ". We have to understood that coil wires is the first wire where the extreme sensible cartridge signal must pass through, what we lost there is losted for ever. Pure and simple.

R.


nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 
It may look like Nandric philosophical exercise but it is about
parts , wholes and langugage we use to describe their 
''connections''. The part in casu is cantilever. There are comparisons
expressed as ''better than relation'' : a > b> c >...n. But whatever 
the  properties of whatever cantilever it is the whole of the
cartridge that determine its ,say, ''value''. By MC kinds one can
state that all are ''composed of the same parts''. The parts are
produced by different companies while all producers and repair
services use the same cantilever/stylus combo. That is to say
that nobody produce his own cantilever/stylus combo. So one
can state putting together al (same) parts is the whole story.
However we recognize that, say, Ikeda, Takeda,  Van den Hul,
Allearts , Lukatschek and Mori ''adds'' something of their own to
 the ''whole cart''. They ''tune'', ''listen'' and try to improve the sound 
of their carts in , say, ''some special way''. This we can name
''the art of the master''.  So the question ''who made the cart''
become one of the criterions to judge. 

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