What is the “World’s Best Cartridge”?

Dear @mijostyn : " wooden bodied cartridges and their sonic performance was not as good as (read colored) the best metal units and their construction quality was not as good. Wood is not a good substrate for a cartridge. "

Cartridge body material is " only a part of the overall parts in the cartridge design and yes it’s important but I think that the designer knows more than you or me how his designs performs in the whole context and inside the designer targets. Normally wood cartridge materials are " treated " in several ways.

I have good experiences with wood cartridge bodies through the time. My first one was the Brier great vintage performer but my first Benz Micro was the Ruby 2 and I like it and I like it so much that I bougth its LP model that did not like me but his LPS is very good performer and the Colibri still is at the top along other today ones as could be MSL. I own the Koestsu RSP and even that I normally do not like the Koetsu signature the Platinum wood is very good. In this thread @mglik almost " die for " his Grado Epoch.

Not only wood material was or is used for cartridges but with TTs too as the Teres Or Sota and even in tonearms as Durand or Grace ( I owned the Sota and the Grace tonearm. )

Almost all first hand experiences and yes inside my room/system and MUSIC/sound priorities.

R.

So, I disagree with you in that specific regards. Maybe not the best cartridge body material but it works and works fine.

Do you understand that I took no position in the statement you’ve quoted? I said the proposition was not resolvable, only. If you think you can “prove” with data the notion that digital is superior, there will always be others who won’t agree. That’s life.

Then if you don't took position in the overall issue why in " hell " you are posting about.

Please don't go around: which your take about your today position? thank's in advance and please try not " dead silence ".

R.

If you don’t like my not taking a position, is that your final position on my not taking a position? My position is that many LPs are not great sounding but many are great sounding even compared to live music, and we attend live performances once or twice a month both in local clubs and at the Kennedy Center. RBCDs are good for when I want to read a book or as background for a party but there’s no way I can listen to them for long if I’m serious about listening. SACDs and the like are better IF they were recorded as SACDs. So in general the silver discs are a yawn. I don’t have RTR, so that’s out. I believe that hi Res digital streaming may outperform LPs. I’m sure hi-rez streaming measures better if done right. I also own 2500 LPs, so I play them. This is a hobby and a source of personal pleasure, not a military exercise.

Some members posting in this thread seem to believe as digital “measures” better than analogue, it must be better and every audiophile should find digital better. I think they are missing a couple of points. 

First, are we measuring the right things, and all of the right things, that affects our emotional response and enjoyment to music reproduced in a system? When CD was introduced, engineers already told us it was “Perfect Sound Forever”, with much lower distortion and wider dynamic range than LP etc. See what happened since than? New type of digital distortion called “jitter” was discovered, which was never measured, or at least not shown in products’ specifications, before. It was certainly new for audiophiles! Now we have DSD, DSD512 etc., and same old story we are still being told it measures better than analogue, so can we be sure no more new types of digital distortions will be discovered in the future? 

The second point is there is a personal side to our reactions to distortions, some of us are just more sensitive to a certain kind of distortion than others. Just to share a recent experience, I and my friend visited another audiophile, who had a high-end digital base system with all the room correction functions etc. While the sound was not my cup of tea, I didn’t hear any obvious distortion. However, after listening for a while, I felt the muscles at the back of my neck tensed up, and with passing time, I felt slight physical pain starting from the back of my ears all the way down the neck! What is interesting is that both the audiophile and my friend didn’t share the feeling！

I want to point out that I rarely have this reaction on audio systems, digital or analogue. The last time I had similar reaction, but a lot less severe, was with a first generation CD player.

The point I want to stress is that since my friend and the audiophile didn’t have the same reaction, I have to conclude that I am just more sensitive to the particular type of distortions in that system. To expand from this, I think it is certainly possible that, we who prefer analogue may just be more sensitive to the types of distortions in digital, even though the “measured” distortion maybe lower! 

Of course, the opposite can also be true, audiophiles who prefer digital may just be more sensitive to distortions in analogue!