The Arm/Cartridge Matching Myth

Henry
I haven’t participated in this thread except at the end, when I was commenting on another posters findings. So if you could kindly give me some slack.

I have a question for you going back to your OP.

You said.

This Resonant Frequency has ZERO affect on the sound quality of a particular tonearm/cartridge combination and I have proved it hundreds of times with a dozen different arms and over 40 cartridges.

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IMO - Hearing "Resonant Frequency" change, "empirically" in Audiophiledom, requires sticking to the golden rule of making only one change at a time, and keeping, everything else the same.

The Resonant Frequency is the result of combined materials in our audio kit. Anyone disagree ?

The most obvious action we can take - that comes to mind - to prove or dis-prove your Resonant Frequency claim is to just change out the armtube of your tonearm....... into a different material.

Did you attempt this Henry ?

Have you owned and tried / do you own tonearms, with the capability to change out the armtube material ?

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My Empirical Findings

You know of my reference tonearm Henry, but for the others reading benefit here; I use a custom build ET 2.5 and it comes from the factory with optional armtubes to deal with different cartridges /compliance’s, and to keep the Resonant Frequency manageable.

In this link

https://photos.app.goo.gl/pgs7qXyF2f4miwLWA

one can see the MAG wand - Magnesium on top and the Carbon Fiber wand on the bottom. There is also an all aluminum wand.

Mag - stiff compliance (high resonant carts) - MC
Carbon Fiber - middle of the road - works with stiff and higher compliance carts. All around performer.
Aluminum - meant for the higher compliance carts - MM - lower resonance.

Let me say before I forget that IMO - all vintage MM’s have stiffened suspensions which makes their Resonant Frequency - not what it says in their user manual - it would be higher.

Think of the sound you get from a stiff and a less stiff tuning fork.

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Empirical Findings - good enough for me.

My Magnesium wand is intended for a stiff Cart - high resonant -Like an MC.
If I put a high compliance MM cart on the Mag wand, the sound becomes quite strident. Keeping the MM on the Aluminum or CF wand works well.  The fact that there is a "sound" change to me, just by changing out the armtube, proves to me, we are dealing with a Resonant Frequency change.

This has been one of my findings.

Cheers Chris

ct, I'm not in a bad mood at all. I just don't tolerate idiocy. People who know me know that I do not manipulate the truth and don't pull punches.
I prefer Islay scotch. Lagavulin will due:)

So lets see, by your logic, regarding any mechanical system subject to user perception, ignore the dynamic (moving) parts interaction and get the best platform you can find??
That's equivalent to having a set of tires and shocks/springs you got from your grandpa's garage, and then deciding to put those excellent parts on the best car you can find. 
Do you seriously think the subjective results are likely to be better than maybe acceptable?
You may not have experienced a problem, but I and many others have. Your analysis and conclusions are ignorant and worse silly. 

Dear @halcro : In good shape because all my posts were trying to help you and I knows that the posts in the past and latests ones coming from different gentlemans have the " mission " to help you and nothing more than that.

Unfortunatelly you showed and still shows that you need no help and that you are rigth and asking for " science " and your science is You tube: this make sense not for me but for any one but you.

Here the people say: " the woerst bling person is the one that does not wants to see ".

It’s unfortunated for you that you follow with the same attitude from six years now in something extremely easy. It’s not rocket science and certainly it’s not big deal for nay one but you.}

Unfortunastely too each time you post ( like the latest one ) you only go deeper in that black hole with out any possibility for see the " ligth ".

In your last link exist two importants things:

""" So far, we’re only studying the motion that is excited by the artificial test signals. What would happen when we expose our combinations to actual real life records? """

and the other is that that gentleman just does not know the real compliance of the 103 cartridge that certainly is not 5cu as he stated, at least not to use that number for a comparison tests:

He needs read this: " *Denon publishes their dynamic compliance specifications relative to 100Hz . The actual compliance at 10Hz will be higher. "

Additional he choosed an analog rig just " terrible ": the TT is the MS 1500 where the platter ring like a bell, has no suspension and all the TT resonates in heavy way, the tonearm is mounted in the MS arm board and the arm board in the TT is hold in one of the TT foots where any kind of resonance pass through ! !
But things does not stop there: he choosed to use a ceramic headshell that is terrible for say the least, ceramic is the worst material for a headshell due to his very high developed resonances/distortions and you know very well this ceramic headshell issue.



In the other side here more information on your false myth:



"""" """ Why is it so important for a few Posters to continually, repetitively and monotonously gnaw and harp, howl and vent, rail......’ """

exactly in the same time that you try to prove the myth with your " science " name it: You Tube.



""" change their viewpoints.....
Why do they insist on trying to change mine? """



no one try to change your mind, tha’s up to you.




I can see in those videos that you use a record clamp. I’m " terrified "
to ask you an additional the use of a clamp is obvious even for a rookie.

.

This from no Agon forum:


""

Whether the correct term is damping or dampening in mass/spring systems complying with Hooke’s law (remember from school physics F=-kx) to describe reducing the system Q (boinginess) probably depends on where you learned to speak English. When talking about loudspeaker panels, pickup arm fundamental resonance or vehicle suspensions, the different spellings either go unnoticed or infuriate pedants.

More importantly than how the words sound is how the product affects the sound.

There have been attempts to control the movement of pick up arms since the early days of microgroove LPs. In a nutshell, slow arm movements are desirable to ride warps and tolerate spindle eccentricity while permitting the arm to be dragged towards the centre of the record by the stylus following the relentless inward spiral.
Very quick arm movements, excited by surface ripples or vibrational energy caused by the cartridge’s imperfect (inevitably) suspension system, are very undesirable as the cartridge will also convert these non linear, non musical, movements to electrical signals as though they were music; which they are not. We call this "distortion" - it is a bad thing.

The mass of the arm bouncing on the stylus cantilever suspension causes it to resonate as a system, either at around 12Hz or 15Hz depending which of the two dominant theories is preferred by the selector of the arm/cart combo under consideration. More unstable arm/cart systems can flop around down below 10Hz when folk stick their favourite hig compliance cartridge in a arm. This results in almost constant oscillation that leads to pitch instability similar to that of the dreadful compact cassette. It also results in comb filtered boomy, poorly controlled, bass. Equally, ultra low compliance moving coil cartridges mounted on lightweight tone-arms can resonate above 20Hz causing problems well into the audible band above 20Hz. The consequences of either condition include overworking amplifiers and out of gap voicecoils in reflex speakers. Getting arm cartridge matching right is absolutely fundamental to competent vinyl replay.

Even when the arm cartridge resonance is in the right ball park, some degree of resonance control has long been considered desirable especially in the bass region. Ideally applied at the cartridge end, as close as possible to the cantilever pivot, attempts using damping brushes mounted on stylus assemblies were tried in the 70s by cartridge manufacturers. Then the (Townshend/Cranfield) turntable went further with a radial damping fluid trough arranged for immersion of a paddle mounted on the headshell. """

You posted in this thread:

""" and it has made me realise how wrong I am about the importance (or lack thereof) of the Arm/Cartridge Resonance
I’m really kcking my self.......I completely ignored its possible relationship to the Arm/Cartridge Resonance """

Please read what you posted there:

"" I completely ignored its ...relationship to the arm/cartridge resonance. ""

Ignorance, you said it not me ( ignorance by you own words. ). You followed:


This is why I suspect, changing cartridges or headshells or adding mass or damping to the tonearm often ‘solve’ the problem
You are simply shifting your resonant frequency ‘out’ of the feedback harmonics """

This post from you confirm with out doubt what @mijostyn posted in reference that you are " deaf ":

""" The most startling aspect of these experiences...has been the elevation in sound quality when using cartridges in arms that are decidedly a ’bad match’ according to the theoretical Arm/Cartridge Resonant Frequency equation....
With the very high-mass FR-66s tonearms.....virtually ALL the high-compliance MM cartridges I mount on them, transcend their often humble status to become magical devices emitting radiance, tranquility and bliss unheard from them in lesser arms....😘
I’m not talking degrees of betterment here.....I’m talking paradigm shifts of exaltation...👋🎼🎵🎶 """

Several times in the past I posted ( and proved with facts. ) that your system is full of " names " of manufacturers but with a room/system extremely deficiente set-up that impedes that you be aware of almost none kind of distortions and the developed harmonics of those ( every kind ) distortions. Today things on how your room/system " speaks " does not changed, it’s a bad/deficient set-up.

Now, post after post you confirm that even that you are not aware ( for multiple reasons. ) you like all those heavy and full distortions in your room/system, it’s what you like no matters what.

Is totally evident your self position about and that’s why your You tube big joke. Fine with me.

You posted

""" It provoked a ’thought exercise’ which leads me to a ’theory’ as yet unsupported by scientific evidence.
I predict that any cartridge will have the same Frequency Response Plot Graph regardless of the Arm/Cartridge Resonance it ’sees’....."""

and said that your " theory " as yet UNSUPPORTED by scientific evidence.

Who understand you? because you already " won " a prize nobel by your scientific evidence name it: You Tube ! ! ! I think that if Newton or Einstein been with us both will give you a " reverence " as the ultimate studies in the audio world ever made..

I think that that coffin rigth now stays near the center nucleo of earth. Good for you and every one because sooner or latter the coffin will be totally burn in.

Again I know that you think not only that you are rigth all all the other gentlemans including me are wrong and that you do not need help from Agoners.

Well at least try to help by your self because the ignorance that you accepted by your post in this thread gives the opportunity to learn.

Not only you can learn on what we ignore some audio subjects all of us is what we do when we ignore something and that learning always enrich our knowledge levels. No one knows everything about every audio subject, no one. We all have ignorance holes not only you that accept it by your self in that post.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,

R.

Btw, the gentleman in your link use an accelerometer and a ADC/DAC not a real room/system with phonolinepreamp and the like and using real conditions about SPL for the tests.

R.