Agreed. Look at better phono amp and stay with the cartridges you have for the moment.
Moving coil VS moving magnet/iron
I have an interchangeable Nagaoka MP500 and a Goldring 2500 on an SME3009R, mounted on a Linn Sondek LP12. These drive a Schiit Mani, Cambridge Azur 651P or a Project S2 Ultra as phono preamps. They all sound very good to my ears.
Is it really worth getting a Moving COIL cartridge AROUND THE SAME PRICE RANGE ? I was thinking some of the Audio Technicas like OC9III and the like. The prices of these are about the same. I listen almost exclusively to smooth jazz (hardly any vocals) and am mostly looking for very tight punchy bass.
Opinions ?
Thanks
Is it really worth getting a Moving COIL cartridge AROUND THE SAME PRICE RANGE ? I was thinking some of the Audio Technicas like OC9III and the like. The prices of these are about the same. I listen almost exclusively to smooth jazz (hardly any vocals) and am mostly looking for very tight punchy bass.
Opinions ?
Thanks
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chakster, these lectures are a great example of how you can bend data to support pretty much anything. Peter also conveniently forgets to mention that a mass at the fulcrum has significantly less effect than a mass at the very end of the lever. Thus the important spec to consider is the moving system's effective mass which include the stylus and cantilever in the mix and do not forget that the length of the cantilever is also a critical aspect of the cartridges mechanical behavior. He intentionally picks the worst example of a moving coil cartridge (picture included) to compare his design. There are many MC cartridges with resonance frequencies above 60 kHz. I also find it very interesting that he did not mention Joseph Grado who invented the stereo moving coil cartridge then switched to moving iron because he also thought it better. Peter's theory is that lower mass at the fulcrum leads to less stylus "jitter" which leads to less "noise." If he really wanted to impress me he would have digital samples of two identical turntables calibrated to the exact same output level one with his best cartridge and another with an Ortofon Anna Diamond playing the same blank groove. Would his cartridge produce less "noise?" I don't know. Neither does he or if he does he is not telling us or rather showing us. So, it all becomes just a marketing theory. All this has nothing to do actually with how a cartridge sounds. This is a subjective judgement we all have to make for ourselves. It does seem most of us prefer moving coil cartridges. I had a Grado Statement and it was a wonderful sounding and tracking cartridge. It's only failing was that any electric field near it created noise. My understanding is that Soundsmith cartridges do not do this. I have not owned one so I can not say. The people who own them love them but it seems we always love the cartridge we have and again sound is subjective. There are some excellent MM cartridges out there but I feel comfortable in saying that the vast majority prefer MC cartridges because we have made the subjective assessment that they sound better. |
There are some excellent MM cartridges out there but I feel comfortable in saying that the vast majority prefer MC cartridges because we have made the subjective assessment that they sound better. @mijostyn If they are better than why this thread was so popular and almost everyone was so impressed with "cartridge on the month" and we ended up having hundreds of them ? I use both types, but i don’t think that entry level MC is any better than decent MM/MI. Add the cost of the MC phonostage or SUT, the cost of re-tip that some people like so much (even with third party parts). And taking in count what Peter Ledermann trying to explain i think MM/MI is a great choice. I remember Garrott Brothers, guys retipped and refurbished many cartridges including Koetsu and Decca, their own cartridge was MM (p77) and they made MC series by request from a person who bankrolled the brand. There are some nice LOMC too, normally at higher price, some of them are very rare, some new are terribly expensive up to 20k. The industry always brainwash people to sell some new overpriced LOMC, but SoundSmith and Grado still around with fairly priced units. And those vintage MM are even better. More lectures like that would be nice to watch. |
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