Mono Cartridge Question

@bonzo75 

To start with, if you use fine style to track at 4g, you will cause harm, but with conical styli the pressure is spread over a greater area. What Darius then explained to me, is that most conical styli are 0.6 mil tip or more, he keeps it at 0.5 as per Shure documentation, which he found to get past that issue.

I think you have this backwards.  If you trust Namiki/Orbray, the fine line/micro-ridge/Replicant type profile has the largest contact patch size and the elliptical the smallest with the conical coming in with a slightly larger contact area of the elliptical but still 1/2 that of a microridge.. 

dave

FWIW, for the past 20 years Lyra has been making mono cartridges with vertical compliance (but no ability to convert vertical motions into electrical signals) and line contact styli of similar dimensions as a microridge (the contact radii of our stylus measure 3um x 70um).

I will add that for a few decades our cartridges have possessed neither polepieces (conductive or not) nor any body structure in the vicinity of the signal coils, with both features being targeted at the banishment of eddy currents.

@jcarr I was wondering if and when you would make your presence known, glad you’re back! Since you joined the conversation back in the day, several other cartridge manufacturers have created a mono cartridge of their own. One that stands out in my mind is the Hana SL Mono for $750.00. This is a pragmatic option due to its affordability. I know the Lyra cartridges are excellent and I’m guessing that the mono cartridges have made advancements over the years. For the large majority of audio enthusiasts, price is a factor. Especially if mono records amount to just a fraction of one’s entire collection. So to get some of the Lyra magic in a mono cartridge, what’s the price point?

@pryso +1 regarding your comment:

Nearly all mono reissues were made with stereo cutter heads with smaller size. I don't believe few if any mono cutter heads survive.  

I assume from this mono reissues may be OK with current stereo cartridges, although a mono switch (per Lew) may still help sonics.  But with original mono releases a mono cartridge with appropriate tip size should optimize the enjoyment.

I had the opportunity to acquire a collection of around 900 mono records, most of them in near mint condition (half of them are real mono, the rest are mono reissues)

I started with Ortofon 2M Mono and a MM phono preamp for the real mono recordings. To my ears it was ok but not more. For the reissues I am using the Orfoton Cadenza Red with a separate tt as stereo cutter heads have been used.

Then I decided to to a step further and purchased a Cadenza Mono and a Graham Slee Audio Revelation MC for the real mono recordings https://www.hifisystemcomponents.com/phono-preamps/revelation-mm-revelation-mc-archival-phono-preamps.html

Connecting only one cinch plug from the TT's phono cable and fit the other entry with a 'dummy' cinch plug (As per advice of Graham Slee).

I reckon that the possibility to choose from different EQ settings are making a big difference for early FFR recordings (pre 1953) and FFR recordings.

The different EQ settings will allow you to obtain a good tonal match to what the the original sound would have been on 78 rpm records, vinyl LPs and EPs

https://www.hifisystemcomponents.com/about/reproducing-old-records.html

IMO, the 2.5k investment in the Cadenza Mono MC and the preamp was a very good one.

Coming closer to listening to real-real mono would probably be using one speaker only? However, I do get wonderful soundstages from the old recordings using both speakers.

I'm happy to get any comments from you mates on how to improve mono listening even further.

Cheers, eagledriver

@eagledriver_22 What tonearm are you using and how important is the tonearm when tracking strictly mono records? Does the Cadenza sound better with older mono versus newer remasters?