$800 Cartridge Shootout and Upgrade Path

If the Shelter 901 sounds over the top in your system, how do you think it would sound in mine? I will have to pass on this cartridge. Did different loadings have any effect? Did you try a lower resistance setting to try to soften the top end?

Yes, I've tried quite fine impedance adjustments. Our stepup tranniess have resistor terminals built in, so I can change cartridge loading in a few seconds to any value I choose. With the 901 we tried values from 19 ohms to 50 before settling on 38. This was with a HIFI modded OL Silver. When we changed arms the optimal load for the 901 changed to 37.5 ohms, no doubt due a slight difference in arm cables.

For the ZYX Airy, I started at 10 ohms, because this gives a similar ratio of impedance load to internal cartridge impedance as 38 ohms does for a Shelter 901. This seems to be pretty nearly ideal in our system.

The slight brightness or etched-ness of the 901 cannot be tamed by loading it down, unless you suppress the highs altogether I suppose. We heard it through Cello's Supratek Cortese at 500, 100 and 50 ohms. It's audible in my very different system at any listenable load. As Soliver says, it's just in the nature of the cartridge. It's a kind of ringing or resonance that causes the 901 to slightly over-emphasise detail and surface noise, and throws everything to the front. The ZYX lets truly quiet passages play as soft as a mouse. The 901 doesn't know how to do that.

Twl,

As always, you have provided useful and sage comments about the tubes versus solid state issue. For me, the issue is closed and it's a solved problem as far as my system is concerned. What's more, I agree with you about the choice between the two as being a matter of personal taste. That sure works for me.

Hey Dougdeacon,

Thanks for responding.

It might have been very silly of me to ask you about the loading question. I should have known you must have tried every conceivable resistance, and then some.

The Shelter 901 is now off my upgrade list. If it sounds bright in your system, can you imagine what it would sound like with my Ascents, like perhaps breaking glass or fingernails being drug across a blackboard? These could be the horrors of brightness awaiting me with that cartridge.

You didn’t respond about the sonic degradation that one might expect with detachable arm tubes. Perhaps the loss of fidelity would be small for most people, but for those who have considerable experience, it could be a small problem with top quality, low-output MCs.

I have now made up my mind as to what turntable, tonearm, and cartridge I intend to buy. Any predictions? The answer can be found in a single recommendation that was posted here in this thread.

Before I divulge the answer, however, I would like to provide some data I have collected about some of the popular cartridges that have been discussed in this thread. This data includes cartridge mass and compliance as well as the mass of one tonearm that was discussed here, the Origin Live Encounter (effective mass = 14gm). I have also taken the liberty to calculate the optimal cartridge/arm system resonance frequency from the data supplied by Van den Hul in Appendix 2 of his online question-and-answer treatise about phono cartridges. (Incidentally, I got the web site information from, you guessed it, Twl.) Here is the URL: http://www.vandenhul.com/artpap/phono_faq.htm#a2.

According to Van den Hul, when we match a phono cartridge to a tonearm, it is important to achieve a cartridge/tonearm system resonance frequency between 8 and 12 Hz, with 10Hz being ideal. If the resonance frequency is too low, the tonearm/cartridge may be excited by record warps creating audible distortion and mistracking. If the resonance is too high, the tonearm/cartridge may be excited by bass frequencies in the record grooves. Thus, we should select a cartridge with the proper mass and compliance that matches our tonearm, or to select a tonearm with the correct effective mass that matches our cartridge, to maintain a cartridge/tonearm system resonance frequency between 8 to 12 Hz.

Here's the data:

Cartridge Mass

Shelter 501: 8.0gm
Grado Statement Master: 6.5gm
Grado Statement Reference: 6.5gm
Music Maker III:6.2gm
Denon DL103R: 8.5gm
AT OC9: 8.0gm
Clearaudio Virtuoso Wood: 6.0gm
Dynavector 17D2: 5.3gm
ZYX R-100FS: 5.0gm
Sumiko Black Bird: 9.6gm
Benz Micro L2: 9.0gm

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Compliance

Shelter 501: 9 x10-6cm/dyne
Grado Statement Master: 20 x10-6cm/dyne
Grado Statement Reference: 20 x10-6cm/dyne
Music Maker III: 30 x10-6cm/dyne
Denon DL103R: 5 x10-6cm/dyne
AT OC9: 9 x10-6cm/dyne
Clearaudio Virtuoso Wood: 15 x10-6cm/dyne
Dynavector 17D2: 15 x10-6cm/dyne
ZYX R-100FS: 15 x10-6cm/dyne
Sumiko Black Bird: 12 x10-6cm/dyne
Benz Micro L2: 15 x10-6cm/dyne

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Resonance Frequency

Shelter 501/OL Encounter: 11.3Hz
Grado Master/OL Encounter: 7.9Hz
Grado Reference/OL Encounter: 7.9Hz
Music Maker III/OL Encounter: 6.5Hz
Denon DL103R/OL Encounter: 15Hz
AT OC9/OL Encounter: 11.3Hz
Virtuoso/OL Encounter: 9.2Hz
Dynavector 17D2/OL Encounter: 9.4Hz
ZYX R-100FS/OL Encounter: 9.4Hz
Black Bird/OL Encounter: 9.5Hz
Benz Micro L2/OL Encounter: 8.6Hz

Funny, I am thinking about getting the Encounter too. Got the 301 which I prefer over the 501 in my very very modest system. I want even more "air" thus really want to try the Dyna 17D2 but taking it one step at a time...