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MC-MM-MI CARTRIDGES . DO YOU KNOW WHICH HAS BETTER QUALITY PERFORMANCE? REALLY?

Dear friends:The main subject of this thread is start a dialogue to find out the way we almost all think or be sure about the thread question :  " true " answer.

 

Many years ago I started the long Agon MM thread where several audiophiles/Agoners and from other audio net forums participated to confirm or to discover the MM/MI/IM/MF/HOMC world and many of us, me including, was and still are" surprised for what we found out in that " new " cartridge world that as today is dominated by the LOMC cartridges.

 

Through that long thread I posted several times the superiority of the MM/types of cartridges over the LOMC ones even that I owned top LOMC cartridge samples to compare with and I remember very clearly that I posted that the MM and the like cartridges had lower distortion levels and better frequency range quality performance than the LOMC cartridges.

 

In those times j.carr ( Lyra designer ) was very active in Agon and in that thread  I remember that he was truly emphatic  posting that my MM conclusion was not  true due that things on distortion cartridge levels in reality is the other way around: LOMC has lower distortion levels.

 

Well, he is not only a LOMC cartridge designer but an expert audiophile/MUSIC lover with a long long and diverse first hand experiences listening cartridges in top TT, top tonearms and top phono stages and listening not only LOMC cartridges but almost any kind of cartridges in his and other top room/systems.

 

I never touched again that subject in that thread and years or months latter the MM thread I started again to listening LOMC cartridges where my room/system overall was up-graded/dated to way superior quality performance levels than in the past and I posted somewhere that j.carr was just rigth: LOMC design were and are superior to the other MM type cartridges been vintage or today models.

 

I'm a MUSIC lover and I'm not " married " with any kind of audio items or audio technologies I'm married just with MUSIC and what can gives me the maximum enjoyment of that ( every kind )  MUSIC, even I'm not married with any of my opinions/ideas/specific way of thinking. Yes, I try hard to stay " always " UNBIASED other than MUSIC.

 

So, till today I followed listening to almost every kind of cartridges ( including field coil design. ) with almost every kind of tonearms and TTs and in the last 2 years my room/system quality performance levels were and is improved by several " stages " that permits me better MUSIC audio items judgements and different enjoyment levels in my system and other audio systems. Yes, I still usemy test audio items full comparison proccess using almost the same LP tracks every time and as always my true sound reference is Live MUSIC not other sound system reproduction.

 

I know that the main thread subject is way complicated and complex to achieve an unanimous conclusions due that exist a lot of inherent differences/advantages/unadvantages in cartridges even coming from the same manufacturer.

 

We all know that when we talk of a cartridge we are in reality talking of its cantilever buil material, stylus shape, tonearm used/TT, compliance, phono stage and the like and my " desire " is that we could concentrate in the cartridges  as an " isolated " audio item and that  any of our opinions when be posible  stay in the premise: " everything the same ".

 

My take here is to learn from all of you and that all of us try to learn in between each to other and not who is the winner but at the " end " every one of us will be a winner.

 

So, your posts are all truly appreciated and is a thread where any one can participates even if today is not any more his analog alternative or is a newcomer or heavily experienced gentleman. Be my guest and thank's in advance.

 

Regards and ENJOY THE MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,

R.

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tomic601's avatar
tomic601
12,911 posts
 

Collect em all and win. Flavorizers aka pleasure seeking has a big place w studio music where the intention is not accuracy and in anything coming out of a DAW. But flavorizing does not obviate the need for some from seeking better reproduction of sound. Some of us on the consuming end go to great lengths to make reference recordings… and certainly a few… precious few manufacturers do…

i fondly remember the magical, inexpensive yet in some systems intoxicating lowly $ HOMC Audioquest AQ-404….

Fun

dogberry
655 posts
 

What I have learnt from this thread is that a MI Cart' can now be acquired for $12K.

Setting the Brand of that Cart's other models aside, what is the price jump from another go to MI Cart' to get to the cost referred to above, $6K, $7K, $8k as there are no in between models?.

In the MC Market the outlays to get to $12K, would easily be progressive in 300 - $500 increments, even all the way up to $15K, as a result of the range of models on offer.

Grado Aeon3 $6k

SS Sussurro Gold Ltd $6.5k

SS Hyperion $8k

SS Hyperion MkII MR $10k

Grodo Epoch3 $12k

I don't know what the new version of the London Reference will cost when it is re-introduced in August, but the old version was $5.3k when it first came out nearly 20 years ago, so it probably will be up there. I think the reason for the large gaps in prices is simply because there are so few of them compared to MC cartridges, which are abundant.

 

@ak749 MM - moving magnet, MI - moving iron, HOMC - high output moving coil, LOMC - low output moving coil. I'm not sure what IM and MF mean here. There are other designs too: ceramic/piezo, strain gauge, optical, field coil.

mke246
34 posts
 

Dear @mijostyn  : " I auditioned the Strain Gauge. It is on the bright side do to response irregularities and it will not handle high groove velocities near as well as a MI or MC cartridge will. "

I agree with you on the brigth side of SG but not in your last sentence due that as optical cartridge design SG did not develops voltage due that " no sense " groove velocity but its amplitude and tha's why in the first page of the thread @mke246  posted that his SoundSmith SG cartridges has not only lower noise but lower distortion even at inner grooves that his high compliance Shure cartridge and he has reason on what he is listening.

Interestingly, the material for which I use the SG has a flat treble response (1920s early electrical recordings), and after I run the SG input through an inverse RIAA treble filter, it's marginally darker than a moving magnet, which in my experience is almost always a good thing. Sometimes I really want to be able to use the moving magnet transfer, but there will always be a few spots where it has notes with distortion that the SG tracks brilliantly. Hard to explain. All my 78 stylii have aluminum cantilevers. I'd like to use something lighter, but it's going to be tough. A friend found someone to make him sapphire cantilever 78 stylii; might try those at some point. I hear they're a bit bright and need EQ to flatten out. I'd really like to find a sustainable 78 archival solution that is as good as or better than the SG and much more affordable, but no obvious answers in sight.

mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 

@mke246  It seems none of the cartridge manufacturers think 78s are worth the effort. I use an Ortofon 2M series for 78s. It has a huge bonded spherical stylus. To describe the 78s I have a scratchy would be an understatement. I would love to know what a new unused 78 sounded like. I do have digital examples of Caruso singing that were taken from 78s and cleaned up with DSP. He sounds like he is in a phone booth holding his nose singing into a plastic bag, but you do get the idea. 

lewm
13,044 posts
 

Small point:  I did not mean to declare definitively that LOMCs can fail to produce realistic piano music because of low compliance resulting in mistracking.  I certainly do not know that to be the case.  I was just offering that as one unsubstantiated possibility.  I do also observe that my LOMCs with highish compliance, like the Ortofon MC2000, do a much better job on piano.  Thus I infer there might be a relationship.  But I campaign against making associations that seem logical but for which there is no direct evidence, and that is one example of such.

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