Hear my Cartridges....šŸŽ¶


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 šŸ˜Ž
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.....šŸ¤Ŗ
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.....šŸ¤—
128x128halcro
My Glanz MFG61 has the same cantilever as in Chaksters picture in the Glanz thread. Cant tell whether it is hollow or not. Compliance of MFG61 is 25x10(-6) @10hz,. Ā 610LX is 10x10(-6)@100hz. You cant accurately compare these, but the likely compliance of the 610LX @10hz is probably around 15-20 - slightly lower than the 61. Channel separation on the MFG61 is 25db@1khz, MFG610LX is 23db@1khz.

No such cartridge as the Nova 17D3. The Karat Nova 13D was only produced in a small run ~40 years ago - mine has been rebuilt/upgraded by Dynavector Japan several times - its a one off. It's resolution exceeds both my Ikeda Kiwame & Garrott Bros Decca Gold with Microscanner.
If I was to replace the Karat Nova 13D it would have to be the XV1T.
Seems to me that ChakĀ“s sample has a rod cantilever. I was surprised when I firstly saw that huge glue drop on the cantilever, I had never seen anything like that before. Does your sample also have a big glue drop ? Why itĀ“s so big IĀ“m not quite sure of its purpose ? It just adds stylus effective tip mass. I canĀ“t see any traces of glue in my MFG 610LX.
If the 61 has a solid rod cantilever then 610LXĀ“s stylus/cantilever assĀ“y is lighter and therefore a more sophisticated design. Its compliance is 45 (static)/10 (dynamic 100 Hz) according to the manual. As we know, all these small differences could make a big difference, especially in these higher quality performance levels.
How do they compare to each other in sound quality is another thing, in different systems.
Some Dynavector fans prefer the new Nova 17D3, others the XV1-t. Very interesting.

Dover, I just noticed that thereĀ“s a new kid in town: the Karat 17DX
Interesting review here:
https://totallywired.nz/analogue/the-dynavector-karat-dv17dx-moving-coil-cartridge/
"A ruler flat frequency from 100 Hz to 30 kHz under +/- 0.5 dB" and right up to 100 kHz, and that very short and extremely rigid cantilever.
From solely a technical point of view the latest Karat 17D is a very interesting cartridge design indeed... and quite a tempting one ...
The inevitable 'Shootout'.......
The music and performer may be 'corny' to some, but the recording on this album does some extraordinary things in my Living Room which the video comes nowhere near conveying...ā˜¹ļø
The sound has incredible depth and height seeming to 'bend' around the room and enveloping the space like 4-Channel tried to...

GRACE LEVEL II/Ruby

AS PALLADIAN LOMC
Unabashed ear-candy. Problem is that there is too much artificial flavoring and not enough real fruit juice in this candy. For me, this music is less ā€œcornyā€ than it is bad sounding. Early digital all the way. Spatially it probably sounds incredible on your system; it is very impressive over my Stax in that respect. But, the ubiquitous (for the time) weird high frequency artifacts that seemed to accompany the upper mids and highs of early digital recording/mastering are very obvious; like a strange halo that rides above the vocals and high frequency sounds. Classic ā€˜80s LA studio recording sonic aesthetic.

Having said all that and ā€œreading (hearing) between the linesā€ there are differences heard between the two cartridges that make, for me and once again, the Palladian the clear winner. At first, the Grace may seem to be even more impressive in the spatial/soundstaging department. I think that at least some of that is due to the fact that the Grace is more generous in the bass to lower mid range and adds body to the sound. However, this range sounds ā€œplummyā€; a little too thick. The Palladianā€™s bass is leaner but better controlled and the suggestion is there that it probably goes a bit lower than the Grace. The Palladian sounds leaner overall, but the sound seems better organized if on a somewhat smaller or less voluminous scale.

Probably less so than most MMs (not the Victors) compared so far the Graceā€™s midrange still has what I hear as a slightly bleached out tonal character. A little gray sounding with a subtle quality that I would describe as a soft graininess. The Palladianā€™s sound in this range sounds more lucid and complete. Imagine looking at a picture in a newspaper; one can see the dots in the images. With the Grace one can see (hear) dots in the mids and highs. The Palladian seems to pack more dots into the same space (time) for a more complete sense of timbre and texture. Ā The advantage of this is that the sound of instruments is more complete and recognized more easily. When the brass first plays, not only did I first have to process whether it was really the sound of brass and not a synth, but I could not hear as clearly that it wasnā€™t only trumpets, but trombones as well. Ā The Palladian made all this immediately more obvious.

On the other hand, the Grace sounds bigger, more robust and more powerful in the bass for a potentially more ā€œimpressiveā€ sonic image. This may appeal to some listeners more and may also be a more suitable match in certain systems. Both sound great and considering the price difference the Grace is pretty amazing. However, this recording is so heavily processed that Iā€™m not sure what any of this proves as far as ranking one as ā€œbetterā€ than the other. Personally, I would love to hear the two cartridges playing something like the Stravinsky ā€œFirebirdā€.

Thanks for the comparison, Halcro.