Hear my Cartridges....đŸŽ¶


Many Forums have a 'Show your Turntables' Thread or 'Show your Cartridges' Thread but that's just 'eye-candy'.... These days, it's possible to see and HEAR your turntables/arms and cartridges via YouTube videos.
Peter Breuninger does it on his AV Showrooms Site and Michael Fremer does it with high-res digital files made from his analogue front ends.
Now Fremer claims that the 'sound' on his high-res digital files captures the complex, ephemeral nuances and differences that he hears directly from the analogue equipment in his room.
That may well be....when he plays it through the rest of his high-end setup 😎
But when I play his files through my humble iMac speakers or even worse.....my iPad speakers.....they sound no more convincing than the YouTube videos produced by Breuninger.
Of course YouTube videos struggle to capture 'soundstage' (side to side and front to back) and obviously can't reproduce the effects of the lowest octaves out of subwoofers.....but.....they can sometimes give a reasonably accurate IMPRESSION of the overall sound of a system.

With that in mind.....see if any of you can distinguish the differences between some of my vintage (and modern) cartridges.
VICTOR X1
This cartridge is the pinnacle of the Victor MM designs and has a Shibata stylus on a beryllium cantilever. Almost impossible to find these days with its original Victor stylus assembly but if you are lucky enough to do so.....be prepared to pay over US$1000.....đŸ€Ș
VICTOR 4MD-X1
This cartridge is down the ladder from the X1 but still has a Shibata stylus (don't know if the cantilever is beryllium?)
This cartridge was designed for 4-Channel reproduction and so has a wide frequency response 10Hz-60KHz.
Easier to find than the X1 but a lot cheaper (I got this one for US$130).
AUDIO TECHNICA AT ML180 OCC
Top of the line MM cartridge from Audio Technica with Microline Stylus on Gold-Plated Boron Tube cantilever.
Expensive if you can find one....think US$1000.

I will be interested if people can hear any differences in these three vintage MM cartridges....
Then I might post some vintage MMs against vintage and MODERN LOMC cartridges.....đŸ€—
128x128halcro
I posted about the Victor Z-1 in my first month at Audiokarma(look at the date in the post #8):

http://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/the-best-moving-magnet-cartridge-opinions-please.10418/
I posted about the Victor Z-1 in my first month at Audiokarma(look at the date in the post #8):

That's a while ago Theophile......
I hope you still have that Victor Z1 cartridge as you won't believe how it sounds with a SAS stylus?

There are many more vintage MMs from my collection that you will hear on this Thread.
You apparently have the same desire for the 'realism' of MMs over MCs that a lot of us also share đŸ€—

Regards
Interesting insights once again Frogman....
I'm a little surprised by your thoughts on the Victor's 'lacking' in the frequency extremes as this is not noticeable to me in reality....?

For me.....this Joan Armatrading track shows a cartridge's ability (or not) to convey the 'emotion' buried in the vinyl.
Does the YouTube reproduction allow you to comment on that aspect?

Regards
@chakster 

as I read in all posts you do not miss anything really eh?  LOL
Halcro, I listened again a few times. Acknowledging the limitations of listening to music this way, the Palladian still sounds more extended at both ends to me. I get more of a feeling of air up top even if the Victor has that very seductive clarity in the midrange (particularly vocals) that perhaps makes it sound “brighter”. The initial impression given by the Victor is of more bass, but the Palladian sounds to me like it goes lower and is tighter with better pitch definition. The Victor sounds tubby in the mid bass range and I wonder if that obscures some bass extension. But I still don’t get as much of that deep foundation that I hear hints of with the Palladian. Re “emotion”:

For me the emotional component is expressed primarily in the area of dynamics just as it is in live music. I find that some listeners associate tonal warmth with emotion and I do acknowledge that tonal naturalness plays an important role; but, ultimately, expressive nuance is mostly about (micro) dynamics. Example:

The tune “Willow” starts with the drummer (on brushes) playing a four sixteenth note lead-in into the bass player’s downbeat, who then plays the bass line mentioned previously. The drummer doesn’t just play four “notes” into the downbeat, he plays each one progressively louder and with a sense of urgency, of going somewhere...the downbeat. To my ears, with the Palladian that dynamic crescendo by the drummer is more obvious, impactful and with more musical intent. By comparison, with the Victor it all sounds a little polite and when the bass enters the tubbiness dulls the impact of the arrival of both drummer and bass on the downbeat and the following bass line also sounds a little bloated in comparison. Same thing happens when the guitar enters in the fourth measure. I find that the Victor’s tubbiness dulls the musical impact of the guitar’s entrance which signals the entrance of the vocal and should sound more dramatic as with the Palladian. Likewise, the sound of the slapped bass which follows is rounder and not as incisive. All things that determine musical impact (emotion). Of course this is all a matter of degree and by comparison, and in no way am I suggesting that I think the Victor is not good in those areas. Of course, then you have that beautiful Victor midrange naturalness; and that beautiful midrange definitely adds to the vocal’s expressive quality.  There really is something special about these cartridges and I hope to find one.

Thank you for the posts.

Btw, what is that single very high frequency ring, like a very high pitched triangle, that one hears at :07 and again at :22, but only on the Palladian version?