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  3. 151721-486

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
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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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rauliruegas
13,051 posts
 
lewm, what's your take on the cartridge coil wire length? doyou don't care about. Has a role or not in the overall cartridge quality performance?

R.


edgewear
543 posts
 
@nandric following up on your last sentence I'm still hoping JCarr will revisited this thread and explain more about what judgment calls designers make in mixing & matching various materials within their basic designs. Every design and part choice has an effect on sound quality, that much we can agree on. And so the variations are pretty much endless, which explains why no two cartridges sound the same. I think it's fair to say that science and art are on equal footing here.

That being said, I still think it's interesting to know if diamond as a cantilever material is capable of potentially lifting the performance plateau as a result of its intrinsic properties. We don't know the answer to that one. A cartridge designer of reputation who has experimented with it most likely could, regardless of whether he decides to use it or not.

What interests me in certain vintage cartridges is that materials were used that are no longer available. Especially when it's very unlikely these 'elements' will ever be reintroduced on the market, like those one piece diamond cantilever/stylus units from Sony.
In a way it's the search for a sound that has gone and will never come back. Regardless whether that sound is any better than today's designs. Probably not, but that isn't really the point is it?


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