Cartridge Opinions - Sorry

I do not know which Grado I ran back in the 80s. I do remember that the Pickering was a 4500. The Stanton was the 881. I got it next door at Sound of Music next to where I worked at the Allied Radio Shack. That is also where I bought my Technics SL1100, equipped with a Rabco arm. The ULTRA 500 was after I was done with Shure (so the type III and type IV I had *were* their top of the line at the time)- the story was at the time that they were no longer going to make cartridges but that turned out to not be true.  By that time I had gone to the Grado, which was the most I'd ever spent on a cartridge.

I didn't dislike these cartridges- quite the opposite-  I simply played them until the suspension bagged out, and bought the next 'hot tip' that my audiophile friends were talking about.

In your theory tonearm is more important that a cartridge, but you never mentioned exact models of those great MM you have triend, except for the Grado Gold which is clearly not the best but was equal to your best LOMC. Well this statement speaks for itself.

It does, in that it is false. What I said was that the Grado Green did that bit. What I mentioned about the Gold is that we use it in the mastering studio to ascertain if a track we've cut will play out properly. If the Gold in the Technics SL1200 plays without distortion, then we can go ahead and do the cut. Lacquers are 14" instead of 12" so sometimes we'll do the test cut outside the lead-in grooves. I modified the SL1200 so that it plays the 14" disks just fine.

Now you might notice something- that actually we're more in agreement here than not. You want to say that the vintage cartridges are the hot setup, and all I've been maintaining through this ordeal is that the arm's ability to track the cartridge is paramount. These are not mutually contradictory statements. But you do seem to be attempting to discredit me nevertheless.

@atmasphere  For the mastering it's nice to have a cartridge that most of the vinyl lovers actually using (like inexpensive Grado for example), not those ultra high-end MC. 

Regarding the tonearms I just don't understand what do you mean. Because I've been using Technics most of my life and never had a miss tracking or something (and Grado DJ200i was on it for a long time). 

As for the High-End tonearms I also don't understand, maybe I'm lucky but for me matching carts and tonearms is not a rocket science. Good tonearms tracks all the matched cartridges perfectly. There are many great tonearms made in the golden era in Japan (fully adjustable, clever design). I see much more problems with modern tonearms without adjustment (cheap simple design). 

It's not necessary to pay $5000 for Tri-Planar, just like with cartridges. 

Now using FR64s or FR64fx, Lustre GST-801 with matched carts, and many more (light mass or heavy mass) tonearms I am happy with the sound.

Old is gold!   

Hi rauliruegas.
I guess there's no-one on this forum that knows more than you.
Try not to patronize in every piece you post.

You are correct it is fundamental to retain the positional relationship between disc surface and stylus through TT and arm bearings with minimum free play.  If this is not achieved, the orientation of the stylus in the groove is allowed to vary, varying the signal in a manner not in the groove.

A properly engineered unipivot can do this.  Its advantage is the arm wand sits on a single point and is held down by its mass, preventing lateral movement in any direction, as long as the bearing does not jitter.

A gimbal set-up must always have some free-play in its bearings, otherwise the arm wand would be unable to move. Thus there will always be unwanted movement between arm wand and arm housing, however small.

A well-engineered air-bearing parallel tracker will do a better job than either.  It requires a high pressure air supply, not a fish-tank compressor.  Even though the tiny air gap in the bearing theoretically allows relative movement between its two elements, the high pressure in the space holds the air-gap constant between them..

Dear @clearthinker : Absolutely wrong. I'm only other audiophile with different ignorance levels than other gentlemans and I know not one but several Agoners with way higher knowledge audio levels than me.
I can see that you have high knowledge level and probably better than me. Good.

In the other side no one in audio knows everything about everything in all thousands of audio subjects. Certainly not me.

R.

A gimbal set-up must always have some free-play in its bearings, otherwise the arm wand would be unable to move.

This statement is false. If a bearing in a gimbal system is over-tightened the arm can still move but a lot depends on the bearing. At some point if tightened too much the arm will get quite stiff, and likely also the bearing will be damaged. The latter issue is far more profound with jeweled bearings, which is why they often have some slop to prevent damage. If a metal bearing is hard enough, this issue is overcome. The SME5 is a good example of this as is the Triplanar and I suspect there are others- its a big world out there.

Regarding the tonearms I just don't understand what do you mean. Because I've been using Technics most of my life and never had a miss tracking or something (and Grado DJ200i was on it for a long time).

Yes- I can imagine this is true- a friend of mine has the EPA-100 and I've not heard it mistrack. But just because this is so does not mean that the cartridge is actually tracking its best. But the difference is both audible and measurable.