Cartridge Opinions - Sorry

Firstly, i want to say that I still agree with Ralph 100%. The arm is more important than the cartridge. IME, that is a FACT.
Secondly, tyrays analogy to the boom and microphone is a false analogy when it comes to tonearm and cartridge, like Ralph alluded to above. 
When i have been in a recording studio as a pro studio player, not once did I see the boom moving around any type of axis to follow what the mic was doing (Yikes). The boom had to remain in place, and in fact the goal was for it to be as stationary and stable as possible. Sure there are numerous other pieces of gear in play while the recording is going on, so what? This analogy is false.
Lastly, I have to say that I also think that Raul likes to argue for the sake of arguing, I have never once seen him admit that he could possibly be in error! The snippet that cd318 posted from the Origin Live website says a lot, even though I'm sure Raul will dispute that also!!! 

daveyf,

I have a question for you. And this is not for arguments sake. I'm just curious.

When a blank piece of vinyl is cut at the factory, in your opinion which is more important. The cartridge/stylus making the grooves or the tone arm?

Thanks 

Everyone who has many different cartridges and tonearms know very well what is more important (if tonearm and cartridge are matched together). And I assume we know how to align and adjust a cartridge/tonearm. Enough said.

tyray164 posts:23pm

"And I also think that Azimuth can only be adjusted on the headshell itself and not the tonearm, whether the headshell is removable or nonremovable. Thanks R!"

my Blackbird has built in micrometer to adjust VTA, easy, precise, wonderful,

but, the cartridge is fixed directly to the long carbon arm. Azimuth adjustment by rotating the carbon tube a speck in it’s snug rear housing, tighten with set screw.

The SOB’s put the set screw on the bottom, what misery to get it right, the worst design feature. As azimuth is critically important, many a curse was issued, I should learn Russian to curse in their language.

@chakster,

'And I assume we know how to align and adjust a cartridge/tonearm.'


I'm sure we all do but some are easier than others. The times I used to wish my decks had a detachable headshell like my first Rega 3 did. Of course they didn't because we were told detachable was very bad. 

But was it really?

With the Rega there wasn't much need to manoeuvre. The square bodied Nagoaka cart was fairly straightforward to align and the mirror check revealed no issues either. 

I remember having a couple of protractors for alignment and some were easier to use than others. I knew that with a 2 point protractor that the inner alignment point was critical to get right because of potential end of side tracking  issues.

The Ittok on the Linn was fairly easy to adjust for height but it was not so easy to try out other arms on the LP12 because of the need for a specifically cut armboard. Besides we were regularly told that the Ittok was the best arm in the world (until the Ekos) so there was little incentive to bother.

I never found arm height to make difference so I kept to the recommended advice of keeping the arm parallel to the top-plate/platter.

It's important to get setup right but don't get too obsessive. There will always be the odd opera torture track that will give most arm/cart combos hiccups.  

Perhaps it's time some brave soul out there tried out a multi cartridge tracking group test. Unsurprisingly the hi-fi press never bothered as the findings may have not been to their or their readers liking.

I do remember certain Shure cartridges being renowned for their tracking abilities. Perhaps it might be worth finding out what carts classical stations such as BBC Radio 3 used to employ in the days before they switched to digital.

Tracking and record care would have been vital to them as they then had one of the most impressive vinyl libraries in the world.