What is the “World’s Best Cartridge”?

Amazing.

We used to have digiphobes in the 80's, now we have analphobes.

This is supposed to be a thread about cartridges and it gets invaded by some wags who seem to have got lost - there is a digital forum for you guys.

If any of you actually understood nyquist/digital theory, you would know that digital is only a little bit out ALL of the time. I'll give you a clue - try building a DA converter not using sine x/x in the calculations to eliminate truncation errors that occur on almost EVERY calculation.

It was the 3M contract to store the US census data on tape long before Sony etc that gave rise to digital storage - given the rapidly increasing population and additional data the US government were running out of space and needed to derive a system that could up the storage capacity using analogue tape. The 3M mathematicians built the mathematical logic that was used for red book CD.

The funny thing is by the time Sony/Philips launched red book CD they were all dead, and no-one at 3M realised the significance of their old patents. Its in the maths.

End of story.

By the way I have a few recordings of some of my audiophile wankwank records on DSD, and funnily enough even playing through a $40k digital front end using DSD direct, my TT extracts more information. What can I derive from this - nothing, zilch. Too many variables to reach a conclusion.

The only thing I can say conclusively is that on large scale classical music, with a top analogue system I am engaged, with a top digital system I often fall asleep.

Make of that what you will.

@lewm any idea as to why the best mono cartridges are but a fraction of the cost to a high end stereo cartridge? Isn’t the design principle generally the same?

@goofyfoot 

You might be amused to know that Decca, in the 1950's, before stereo became common, often recorded in stereo but released in mono because they thought they would have to pay the musicians double if the musicians knew they were being recorded in stereo.

@dover Ha-Ha, that's because musicians only think about money. I believe Remington was the first to record in stereo. I'm thinking it was the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in the 1940's. But I really have to wonder if they're done well or if it just sounds like panning, or the piano in one speaker and everyone else in the other, etc... In many respects, early stereo was a gimmick before it became an art in and of itself. I've got the $1,500.00 EMT mono cartridge on my radar but I need to upgrade my tonearm first. For me, a devoted mono table is financially doable.

@mikelavigne , My answer is simple. Bernie is wrong, dead wrong. Done in 24/192 or above transformations are transparent. The system I use operates in 64 bit floating point so volume does not matter at all. 24/192 recordings of the turntable are indistinguishable from the original unless there is a scratch then the recording sounds better because the scratch is gone. It was removed prior to RIAA correction when its duration is shortest. The "hole" is filled in with a duplicate of the prior millisecond or so of music. Nobody would ever know where there was a scratch.

As @rauliruegas suggests, you can use any audio tool to make things worse. The beauty of digital signal processing is that if used correctly deficiencies in any system (includes the room) can usually be resolved resulting in a dramatic improvement in sound quality. But there are limitations and acoustics have to be managed so that digital corrections are minimal particularly in the bass region or one can rapidly run out of amplifier power. 

There is no system than could not benefit from digital signal processing. Processors are running so fast now that there is virtually no down side unless you are the type that insists on everything remaining analog, the horse and buggy crowd.