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Hear my Cartridges....🎶

Many Forums have a 'Show your Turntables' Thread or 'Show your Cartridges' Thread but that's just 'eye-candy'.... These days, it's possible to see and HEAR your turntables/arms and cartridges via YouTube videos.
Peter Breuninger does it on his AV Showrooms Site and Michael Fremer does it with high-res digital files made from his analogue front ends.
Now Fremer claims that the 'sound' on his high-res digital files captures the complex, ephemeral nuances and differences that he hears directly from the analogue equipment in his room.
That may well be....when he plays it through the rest of his high-end setup 😎
But when I play his files through my humble iMac speakers or even worse.....my iPad speakers.....they sound no more convincing than the YouTube videos produced by Breuninger.
Of course YouTube videos struggle to capture 'soundstage' (side to side and front to back) and obviously can't reproduce the effects of the lowest octaves out of subwoofers.....but.....they can sometimes give a reasonably accurate IMPRESSION of the overall sound of a system.

With that in mind.....see if any of you can distinguish the differences between some of my vintage (and modern) cartridges.
VICTOR X1
This cartridge is the pinnacle of the Victor MM designs and has a Shibata stylus on a beryllium cantilever. Almost impossible to find these days with its original Victor stylus assembly but if you are lucky enough to do so.....be prepared to pay over US$1000.....🤪
VICTOR 4MD-X1
This cartridge is down the ladder from the X1 but still has a Shibata stylus (don't know if the cantilever is beryllium?)
This cartridge was designed for 4-Channel reproduction and so has a wide frequency response 10Hz-60KHz.
Easier to find than the X1 but a lot cheaper (I got this one for US$130).
AUDIO TECHNICA AT ML180 OCC
Top of the line MM cartridge from Audio Technica with Microline Stylus on Gold-Plated Boron Tube cantilever.
Expensive if you can find one....think US$1000.

I will be interested if people can hear any differences in these three vintage MM cartridges....
Then I might post some vintage MMs against vintage and MODERN LOMC cartridges.....🤗
128x128halcro
chakster's avatar
chakster
6,144 posts
 
Some crazy post here again about ceramic base of the Audio-Technica cartridges, it looks like someone pretending to be more knowledgeable that Audio-Technica engineers, right ?

Let me add one quote directly from the Audio-Technica manual for their AT-ML series of reference MM cartridges:

*** "Audio-Technica engineers have ensured against unwanted parasitic vibration with an anti-resonance ceramic mounting base." ***

In other worlds Ceramic Base is there only for one reason and this reason is to eliminate resonance, but the Mexican claimed the anti-resonance base increasing the resonance. One of the most stup*d statements I have ever read on this forum!

AT-ML180 is one of the best MM cartridges ever made.
Ceramic base is anti-resonance base designed by AT engineers for this cartridge.
This is all you need to know.

Anybody asked about Saec or Victor headshell ? How those shells from different manufacturers related to AT-ML top of the line moving magnet cartridges ?




bydlo
142 posts
 
Hey @halcro :)) !
I hope it is ok to post it here, could not find a better thread.
I've finally tested very low (16.5k) load on my London Decca Reference, motivated by your earlier findings from may 2020
" At 15K Ohms and 430pF....the cartridge simply comes 'alive'....
The changes in loading produce more fundamental differences than heard on many of the cartridge vs cartridge comparisons IMO "
I first went down from 49k to 33k. Together with a VTA adjustment and one magic trick (change of....ekhm...fuses in the amp...;) this gave me absolutely thrilling sound. Super direct, "naked", alive but to extreme, wild, unpredictable, soundstage to die for, music touching me deeply so that I had to make frequent stops while listening to digest what I was hearing. Or so was the 1st impression. On the downside the tonal balance was still shifted upwards or so I suspect. Great operatic voices of the past like Sutherland would quite frequently run into an overload on the highest notes.

I then went to 16.5k. I have not control over the capacitance so in both cases 33k and 16.5k it was the same, around 300pf including the tonearm cable. The sound: More polite, a bit recessed, flowing, musical, creamy and syrupy, not so raw and unpredictable, soundstage more recessed and a bit less detailed. The tonal balance seemed better, the high note overload gone without the bass becoming loose and boomy. But I had a feeling I've lost something. This incredible "naked  directness". I've changed output tube in the phono and some of the sparkle came back but still there is this a bit of that syrupy souce of politeness left.

I plan to test 25k tomorrow to "control the sparkle" as you have put it nicely :)

Thank you v much for sharing your experience and a continuous inspiration Halcro!
noromance's avatar
noromance
9,988 posts
 
@bydlo I load my Super Gold at 51k with Vishay bulk foil resistors. I love the sparkle.
bydlo
142 posts
 
@noromance Surprisingly 47k in my circumstances (all this loading is very very ’personal’) wasn’t that sparkling. The bass was cut, which I could easily verify changing to SPU Silver Meister mounted on the same deck and well, deeply loaded. But the crazy sparkle of 33k wasn’t there. BTW the bass of 33k and lower is simply superb! Deep organic, explosive when needed. Just the heights that run into overload sometimes which i guess was not the recording engineers' intention.

I’m using RN60 Dales for finding the right value, then switching to Charcroft Z-foils. Very transparent resistors.
dover
2,271 posts
 
@bydlo 

I settled on 22k vishays for Garrott Bros modified Decca London Gold with micro scanner. Probably set up about 10-15 of them in various arms. Also tried mounting resistors on cartridge, end of arm and emd of phono cable. Each position changed subtlely but getting the R optimised had the biggest impact.
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