Cartridge Opinions - Sorry

@chakster

Even with MM some people always like high output, don't know why, some people think louder is better (I do not agree).

I think it depends on the phono stage, if you have a not so good phono stage with not so much gain the high output cartridge could make sense, if you have a very good phono stage the high output cartridge will work against you. I have tested on my system a Denon MC and Stanton (concorde?) MM, the MM output brings a radio station on my left speaker and lots of noise, the MC won't, now this specific issue could be related to other electrical EMI/RFI conditions. Hopefully I would be able to test some more soon.

Ralph following your comments it would seem the entire "magic" of TT reproduced audio it is most closely related to mechanical parameters (rigidity, mass, adjustments etc) than the electrical ones (MC or MM etc, even the cartridge stylus (mechanical) shape and material will have more impact in the final result.

@luisma31 Well if the cartridge won't track properly its not going to be all that magical :)  You really do want to get that bit right.


Now you may have noticed something- with MM cartridges you can't get as much bandwidth. This probably isn't a big deal since the LP is bandwidth limited above about 45KHz or so and there probably isn't any information up there anyway other than noise. But I'm looking at this from a phase shift issue- when you have out of band frequency fluctuations they can introduce phase shift in the audio band, although for the most part it will be above 8 or 9KHz so this may not be much of a concern. But I like to cover all the bases- its very much like looking after the little things that add weight to a bicycle- the more you get right, the more likely the final result will have more detail, deeper wider soundstage, stuff like that.


So I'm a bit hesitant to say which is more important to get things right (get the 'magic'). But if the cartridge mistracks it certainly won't happen. But if it is tracking effortlessly, that is when its important that all the electrical parameters are right too. So I guess I see it as a bit  like a string of pearls  :)

Dear @atmasphere  : "   I used to have a Graham 2.2. I tried using a Grado wood body cartridge in that arm and encountered something called the 'Grado dance' although this is not something that is a particular fault of Grados (which are a great cartridge) or for that matter the arm. This was simply because the arm mass in tandem with the suspension of the cartridge.........."

Any one that owns an unipivoted tonearm design has very low knowledge levels on the tonearm/cartridge overall issue and you are not an exception to that. Good that you are improving about.

All unipivots no matters mass  cartridge always " dance/jump " inside the grooves generating higher tracking distortion levels than non-unipivot tonearm designs.

Not only Triplanar but any gimball tonearm design handled that problem in better way but can't avoid it completely even if the resonance frequency between the tonearm and cartridge is in the 8hz/10hz-12hz " ideal " range and exist only one posibility to put that groove jumping out of the " equation " or at least at minimum.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

Any one that owns an unipivoted tonearm design has very low knowledge levels on the tonearm/cartridge overall issue and you are not an exception to that.

This sort of blanket statement is really problematic. The later Graham Phantom is a very decent unipivot- magnetically stabilized. I had gone from the SME5 to the Graham 2.2 because the latter worked with a larger range of cartridges, but the Grado was not one of them. If you had the right cartridge on it there was not 'dance/jump' at all. The Micro Benz did quite well on that arm. But the Triplanar as tracked any cartridge I've installed on it perfectly (which is to say no breakup and effortless no matter how heavy the groove was modulated), once I get the effective mass right.