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What is the “World’s Best Cartridge”?

I believe that a cartridge and a speaker, by far, contribute the most to SQ.

The two transducers in a system.

I bit the bulllet and bought a Lyra Atlas SL for $13K for my Woodsong Garrard 301 with Triplanar SE arm. I use a full function Atma-Sphere MP-1 preamp. My $60K front end. It is certainly, by far, the best I have owned. I read so many comments exclaiming that Lyra as among the best. I had to wait 6 months to get it. But the improvement over my excellent $3K Mayijima Shilabi was spectacular-putting it mildly.

I recently heard a demo of much more pricy system using a $25K cartridge. Seemed to be the most expensive cartridge made. Don’t recall the name.

For sure, the amount of detail was something I never heard. To hear a timpani sound like the real thing was incredible. And so much more! 
This got me thinking of what could be possible with a different kind of cartridge than a moving coil. That is, a moving iron.

I have heard so much about the late Decca London Reference. A MI and a very different take from a MC. Could it be better? The World’s Best? No longer made.

However Grado has been making MI cartridges for decades. Even though they hold the patent for the MC. Recently, Grado came out with their assault on “The World’s Best”. At least their best effort. At $12K the Epoch 3. I bought one and have been using it now for about two weeks replacing my Lyra. There is no question that the Atlas SL is a fabulous cartridge. But the Epoch is even better. Overall, it’s SQ is the closest to real I have heard. To begin, putting the stylus down on the run in grove there is dead silence. As well as the groves between cuts. This silence is indicative of the purity of the music content. Everything I have read about it is true. IME, the comment of one reviewer, “The World’s Best”, may be true.
 

 

mglik
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,973 posts
 

@ghdprentice I agree on all counts. I would prefer to not have all that space taken up by so many LPs, but OTOH I'm also a bit uncomfortable with having all my music on the cloud, since this means a server farm (which can take as much power as a small city) has to be running 24/7 to maintain my music collection. If something were to happen to my online account, all of a sudden that music is gone. I don't like the idea of wasting all that energy when I'm not at home or when I'm asleep; with all the different hacks that keep showing up (and outright online attacks) I just feel better having the LPs available. Old school, I know.

Also its fun to put the LP on and have guests think that is really a CD because they play without 'surface artifacts' which I found out 35 years ago are often caused by the phono preamp rather than the LP surface.

I had some guests over this last weekend and I noticed that they were all about the sound and didn't have any thoughts about the media. That's how it should be.

ghdprentice
7,338 posts
 

@atmasphere 

 

It is fun putting on an LP. Mine have almost no surface noice.

I have storage space on my streamers. I use it for about an hour a year. Wifi is only likely to get more reliable. 
 

I am pretty sure the single file on the cloud serving tens of thousands or millions of users. It consumes many times less energy than the same thousands of users, buying the vinyl albums or CDs… and having built space to store them. 
 

Server farms are able to store stuff at a fraction of the cost and energy of manufacturing and distributing physical media. One of the many things driving their build. Finally the distraction of forests for paper… oil for plastic disks is reduced by online stuff.

 

Data storage is becoming a utility. If something happens to your Qobuz account, in a couple minutes you can be up and running with a free month of Tidal. Besides, you have your vinyl. So, you are set.

 


 

 

solypsa's avatar
solypsa
462 posts
 

Server farms are able to store stuff at a fraction of the cost and energy of manufacturing and distributing physical media. One of the many things driving their build. Finally the distraction of forests for paper… oil for plastic disks is reduced by online stuff.

 

Are you certain of this math? I'm not, curious is all....

r_f_sayles's avatar
r_f_sayles
872 posts
 

The best cartridge in the world is the one you continually go back to for the music. There is no best.

The chain and setup are too complex to make that evaluation.

 

Our ears and tastes are too varied.

Enjoy what you have. Keep listening

mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 

@rauliruegas , no argument from me. Only in countries where people have large amounts of expendable income is the LP going to persist.

@atmasphere , modern 64 bit floating point processors can lose a bunch of bits before distortion becomes any issue close to being audible. This is more important than just volume controls. In order to do "room control" effectively you have to be able to cut digital volume as well as boost it at various frequencies. This has to be done without adding distortion on one hand and overloading amplifiers and speakers on the other. The technology is now fully up to the task. The new DEQX Premate series should be amazing on all accounts judging from what I have read. 

I have never heard a silent LP, quiet ones yes, silent no. Also, LPs are not reliably quiet. Some are throw away noisy from the very start. Dust? Contaminated PVC? Recycled PVC? Bad handling? It is a very fragile process. As long as you have a backup disc digital files are 100% reliable in terms of playability and noise levels. You can not get a file with a scratch on it. This says nothing about the music.

Records may be improving overall but there is such wide variation in quality it is hard to see or hear. Some of my European Classical albums from the 70s and 80's are fabulously quiet and are great recordings. I can not imaging new releases being any better.

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