Cartridge ISOLATION; What Say You?

In locus sounds impressively Latin and gives an air of certainty, which is unfortunate since in this case that is the last thing we have. The phono cartridge is moving around like all get-out. It isn’t even "in locus" with respect to the head shell, which is the one thing it is most "in locus" with of them all.

To understand this it helps to understand, neither is the cartridge body. In fact, not one speck of any of it is "in locus" that is the whole point! The instant the stylus moves, the other end of the cantilever does not instantly move exactly 1:1. Quite the contrary.

What happens instead? A wave travels down the cantilever to the other end. Whereupon reaching the end it is reflected and travels right back down to the stylus. Don’t take my word for it either, watch the darn Ledermann video!

This same concept of vibration does not stop here. The whole cartridge body is vibrating. Upon reaching the head shell a lot of this energy reflects back into the cartridge, and all the way back down into the stylus. This is what we are trying so hard to avoid. This is where the Enabler comes in.

But it does not stop at the head shell either. The same process continues on down the arm tube to the bearings, base, plinth, and on and on. Each and every one of these interfaces is an opportunity for vibrational energy to either be absorbed and dissipated or reflected back down to the stylus.

The generator of course cannot distinguish one vibration from another. It sums them all together and away we go. This is what we hear when we play a record. Not some academic theoretical "in locus". A whole bunch of stuff vibrating around like mad. As far from in locus as you can get.

amidst all of this 

whole bunch of stuff vibrating around like mad

MC ignores that cartridge/tonearm compliance is a spec having any relevance, particularly if you have an Origin Live tonearm.  Why focus on some vibrations and not others?  Cognitive dissonance at its finest. So bizarre...cherry picking science.

and oddly, ex locus rant ignores the inconvenient truth of the video ( yes the referenced Lederman ) that Moving Coil designs including….wait for it the Koetsu Rosewood suffer from massive reflected energy.

The gushing for strain gauge has already started….Of course, i have heard both..they have virtues…and somehow….yet leave a lot on the table….

I think a much more interesting and salient point about the Peter video, and one as a customer, i plan to ask is; If you have built a moving iron cartridge with 56 db of channel separation, why not change the Hyperion spec ?

Btw Peter, holder or coholder of 11 IBM patents, has my highest esteem and respect. Hopefully his health is recovered fully!

As the Eagles sang “ every form of refuge ( design ) has it’s price.

Ralph, i would love to come cut a record with you !
My wife and I sponsor vinyl release now and then for a local artist, so except for cutting, i am no stranger to the process. I took a run at buying Berdan’s Skully….but…..

 

@tomic601 I think MC’s gushing over the strain gauge actually speaks more towards his personal musical priorities, which may or may not match others’ priorities. He seems to like his SQ very clean, fast, and with a sense of immediacy that not everyone may connect with - in fact, some may feel these sonics could become fatiguing. This SQ describes the Tektons (designed by a drummer) as well as the Herron phono stage which is the cleanest (almost SS-like) sounding tube phono stage I’ve ever owned.

Plenty of folks totally connect with these sonics but I did find some of Fremer’s (one of MC’s audio heros - did you know he once called MC on the phone???) comments interesting as Mike reflected on the virtues and possible compromises of the Strain Gauge in his Stereophile review:

That stop-and-start ability, that freedom from overhang that audiophiles often confuse with "warmth," are leapfroggings in performance over more usual cartridge designs—yet the SG-200’s delivery was so fast and clean that there was little time for harmonic development to unfold before it was off to the next aural event. So while the attack was extraordinary, the sustain was somewhat stingy. The SG-200 could sound somewhat cool and lacking in physicality, and while its top was crystalline and airy and its bottom tight, deep, and well textured, the mids were less than fully fleshed out, making the overall sound somewhat cool and slightly recessed.

The SG-200 is a perspective-changer, that’s for sure, and not because it adds gross colorations—though with that apparently rising high end, it definitely has a unique sonic character. Don’t expect unrelenting brightness, because it didn’t consistently sound like that. That particular quality seemed to be record-dependent, and not predictably so, for reasons perhaps Peter Ledermann can explain.

Admittedly the irony to what I've typed above is that I'm not sure MC has actually ever heard a Strain Gauge...not hearing a product admittedly has not stopped him from gushing over other products in the past.