Who needs a Diamond Cantilever...? 💍

@mijostyn

Pretty good amateur opinion Raul. This is what I came up with. The specific gravity of Boron is 2.34. This means that Boron is 2.34 times heavier than an equal volume of water. The specific gravity of diamond is 3.52! Diamond is significantly heavier than Boron. A Boron cantilever will have a lower effective mass and theoretically track better. This does not take into account the stiffness of the two materials. Both are very stiff but I believe diamond is stiffer. The stiffer material would provide more accurate transmission. In order to know which is superior in any given design I think you would have to build the cartridge both ways and subject it to testing. I have this itch that tells me the diamond is more of a marketing strategy than anything else. 

On my Dynavector Nova 13D the diamond cantilever is only 1.3mm long,  therefore it is almost certainly lighter than most boron cantilevers of conventional length.

Regards to use of diamond, my understanding with the Dynavector Nova 13D is that the stiffness pushes resonances further up out of the audio band improving high frequency extension.

As an aside are your specific gravity numbers germaine to synthetic diamonds/rubies versus the natural material ??

With regard to short cantilevers look at the van den hul colibri - van den hul has certianly gone down a path of shorter cantilevers and medium compliance with his current generation.

@chakster 

So some of you who blame me for collecting The best Vintage MM should know that Diamond, Boron, Ruby whatever you name it  ... is technology from the 70’s.

If you are about innovative know-how design of the 21st century then try Synthobionic Cantilever :)

Funny how you eschew the use of materials from the 70's as outdated, but still fantasise that the suspension systems of the clapped out vintage cartridges from the 70's that you resell are in perfect shape after 50 years.

There are many superior vintage materials no longer available simply because of cost to manufacture, health and safety laws, not enough demand - high end audio is generally too small a market to produce specific materials.

Examples are
SPZ material used in the Final Audio VTT1 turntable that I own - a cast material that has superplasticity at room temperature and resonances between 10hz and 100hz are dissipated internally at a molecular level. The material was original invented in Japan for earthquake proofing build foundations, but was too expensive to manufacture and discontinued.
The original Final Audio VTT1 with the SPZ base leaves the big micros and most every other TT that I have heard, including your direct drives sounding coloured and vague. The Kondo Ginga is a cheap dumbed down copy of the original Final Audio Research VTT1 with none of the superior 1970's materials engineering.

Toxicity issues in the manufacture of hollow boron and beryllium cantilevers.

There are numerous other examples.

@dover , van dan Hul does that by eliminating the front pole piece. Sure a diamond cantilever 1/3rd shorter than a boron cantilever will weight about the same assuming the same diameter. The shorter cantilever is sure to have some disadvantages it terms of leverage and tracking error. I have no idea what all this means. You would have to build and test multiple designs to see what happens. My sense is that the cottage builders develop theories and build them assuming they work without a full understanding of other factors and  adequate testing other than listening, the artistic approach. Thus, you wind up with cartridges of different character. In reality cartridges of any type are not very complex devices and it should not be all that difficult to develop a full understanding of the various factors at play. It just takes time and money.
As Raul suggests a lot of it might be developing finer tolerances and better construction methods. Very few of us have the time, money or experience. We know a few things about the cartridges we use, how they sound, how they track and such. We have and defend pet favorites and some of us know a little about the physics involved but, that is about it. Raul has managed to gain a lot of experience by doing whatever it is he does. Between Raul and chakster you probably have 80 % of the cartridge knowledge on this site. My own meager experience seems diametrically opposed to the experience of others. I am beginning to think moving coil cartridges are a waste of money and that you can get equal or better performance out of much less expensive moving magnet and iron cartridges. 

@mijostyn

I am beginning to think moving coil cartridges are a waste of money and that you can get equal or better performance out of much less expensive moving magnet and iron cartridges.

I dont agree. MM’s have an inherent issue in that the high frequency response has phase and linearity issues, the capacitive loading is essentially tuning the high frquency response to get some semblance of linearity at the cost of phase anomalies. Even Raul after trawling through gazillions of MM's has concluded that he prefers LOMC's.

The issue with MC's I believe is the paucity of really good moving coil phono stages. Of course there are duds out there, but there are excellent MC's from even quite modest pricing ( example Audio Technica AT33Ptg ) provided you have a good phono stage.

Moving Iron is a better alternative to LOMC's than MM's in my view - Decca, Soundsmith both produce excellent cartridges at a variety of price points. 

If someone has an average turntable/arm and/or phono they are more likely to get less issues with MM/MI than LOMC. That is the crux.

I still have a Glanz MFG61 moving flux, JVC X1 MM and a few others in the box - I never listen to them, any decent LOMC for around $1500 blitzes them. Same with Chaksters much vaunted Audio Technica's he pushes, they are brittle and lack body. Soundsmith & Decca I can listen to ( and the odd Grado ).

It’s not funny Dover, because all your passage has nothing to do with unique cantilever used exclusively in Bluelectric MM cartridge that cost $10 000. And if you are so concerned about damper then his silicone damper will last forever, even if I will “re-sell” it to you 40 years later the properties of this damper will not change. This is what you want? The cost is only $10k today if Mr. Adreoli will accept your order, unfortunately his cartridges are not available from the dealers or shops. And if you can search and read about him you will understand his philosophy and his opinion about the whole high-end market today.


Regarding specific type of cantilever made in the 70’s I can assure you that I have them all (Diamond, Boron Pipe, Beryllium and even Ceramic Pipe you may never tried, it was Grace exclusive for MM). I really like them on specific models of cartridges.


Regarding suspension/damper condition on those vintage high-end cartridges: Do you think people are so stupid that they can’t define lowrider (cartridge) with softened suspension or a cartridge with stiff suspension? Or maybe they can’t measure compliance using a Hi-Fi News Test Record counting it from the actual tonearm/cartridge resonance figure? Or maybe people can’t send their cartridges for $30 inspection? Or maybe they can’t return a cartridge with bad suspension for full refund using their paypal buyers protection? Where are the feedbacks from the customers cheated by sellers of vintage carts with stiff of softened suspension? Maybe some negative threads on various forums? Or maybe it’s impossible to compare 2-3-4 samples of the same model to make sure what is good? Or maybe they can’t swap spare styli? Please tell me what’s the point to lie about cartridge condition (including suspension condition)? Only retippers capitalize on service (still an option for the buyer).

Save your stories about your luxury gear from Final Audio for your old rich friends, I am not interested in overpriced audio gear. This is not my style of living, but music is very important part of my life.

I do not re-sell cartridges, I collect them, I buy them!

And I’m looking for exceptionally good cartridges only for a reason, blast from the past (not interested in vintage junk).


But posting all the BS could you please at least provide a link to my sales list or online shop or whatever? Or maybe my current ebay or ukam listing with any cartridge for sale or something like that? May you can provide my sales score using buyers feedbacks on my ebay or ukam? I did not sell anything to you.

Bit I’ll tell you once again that I sell whatever I want to sell from my own collection only if I wish to, just like any other person in this hobby. I’ve been doing the same with my rare records from my own collection for a long time. This is a natural way to survive in this expensive hobby if you are not rich. It’s hard to understand for you, because as an ex hi-end dealer you’ve been able to buy with 30-50% discount about 40 years ago and capitalize on it. But luckily I am not at the age of grandfather, so the stuff from the 70’s wasn’t available for me, not only because I was born in the 70’s, but also because I was born in Russia. Modern high-end market is madness, this is why music lovers and audio enthusiasts are happy with vintage gear (cartridges, speakers , tubes ...).

I’m not “pushing” anything, even if your opinion is different (why it should be the same as mine?) you are free to buy whatever you want and tell everyone what exactly do you like and why. I can compare cartridges in my system and I posted a lot about this system with images. I have no idea about your system, but for some reason I think it’s not a low power amps with high efficient speakers like mine, also completely different music I guess. I don't need anyone telling me about a sound of turntable drive itself, some audiophiles are sick.