Which cartridge is the Imaging/soundstaging champ

Jdolgin,

Just to add a bit more to affirm some comments already made:

As Sbank notes, the Shelter 501 sounds superb in the JMW-9 tonearm (whether regular or Signature version). Here is yet another example of theory not playing out in reality. My experience also is based on listening to Slipknot1's system on many occasions (and again just this past week as we traded around some amplifiers in his system).

The Grado Sonata is a lovely cartridge in many respects, but pinpoint imaging is not it's strong suit. It would not surprise me at all that your digital system shows greater image specificity than the Sonata. The Grado Reference and Statement cartridges are much more competent in this regard than the Sonata, but they also are not as strong in this particular area as several of the other cartridges mentioned in this thread. The Grados do have have other fine characteristics, however, and I have enjoyed various Grado models in my system over the years.

Regards,

SirSpeedy,
You must have been one of those AS was thinking of. Who else published the definitive guide to adjusting damping fluid in a Graham?! The dealers don't understand it 1/10 as well as you. AS is right, we have a great group here and we all learn as much as we teach.

Jim,
If you think about what we're trying to achieve in vinyl playback it's pretty simple. (To understand, not to do!)

We are attempting to exactly replicate the record manufacturing process, but in reverse. If our rigs could do that, with no distortion of any kind, then the signal coming from our cartridge would exactly equal the signal that went to the cutting head. That would be perfection in vinyl playback.

No rig can actually do this of course (except Rushton's!), but we seek to eliminate or reduce as many roadblocks as we can. One roadblock is this: the original lacquer was cut by a stylus whose profile was thinner and whose edges were sharper than ANY playback stylus.

Therefore, every decent LP has modulations cut into the grooves smaller than the radius of any playback stylus's contact surfaces. Even the best playback stylus cannot "see" all the musical information that's there.

What to do? Clearly, if accurate reproduction is our goal we must use a stylus that can read as many of these fine modulations as possible. Different stylus profiles will directly affect the accuracy of our playback.

CONICAL (sometimes called spherical, incorrectly)
These are shaped exactly as the word says, like a small ice cream cone. At any given level their contact radius is a perfect circle equal to the radius of the entire stylus. This radius is orders of magnitude larger than the radius of the edge on a cutting stylus, so a conical stylus will just slide right past fine modulations without reacting. Cartridges with conical styli will always have the worst HF response, other things being equal. They have progressively greater and more audible problems as they approach inner grooves, where the size of modulations for a given frequency is smaller than on outer grooves. Inner groove distortion will tend to be worse with a conical stylus than with other shapes that can read small modulations more accurately.

ELLIPTICAL
These are more egg-shaped when viewed in cross section. An ellipse has multiple radii, and the two small radii define the sides that contact the groove walls. This means they read HF modulations better and distort on inner grooves less, compared to a conical type. Since the stylus's cross section is no longer a "dumb" circle, stylus rake angle (SRA) starts to become a factor. Conical styli are fairly insensitive to SRA, elliptical styli are more so.

LINE CONTACT
These have long, fairly sharp contact edges. They can "see" and trace much smaller modulations than an elliptical stylus. The length and fineness of the contact lines makes azimuth adjustment and SRA extremely critical. Choosing a line contact stylus but ignoring these adjustments would largely waste the cartridge's potential.

MICRO-RIDGE
This is the most complex shape among today's styli. Imagine an ellipse (more or less) but with a very thin ridge sticking straight out from each end. Each ridge has a very small radius edge. This profile sees the finest modulations of all AFAIK. This means azimuth and SRA are still very critical. Micro-ridge styli are best at tracing small modulations, so they have the least problems on tight inner grooves. I have a few inner groove torture test LP's that no conical or elliptical stylus that I've tried can play cleanly. It takes a top quality cartridge with a micro-ridge stylus to make those grooves sound like music instead of a fingernails on a blackboard.

Obviously the rest of the cartridge will also impact the sound, but in general conical styli (lower level Grado's for instance) have great mids, rolled off highs and frequent inner groove problems. Elliptical styli occupy the middle ground. Micro-ridge and line contact styli offer the potential for superior frequency response and lower distortion on challenging passages, but also require more care in setup.

I'm not sure why a micro-ridge stylus should ride quieter in the groove than other shapes, but I agree with Sbank. The ZYX's I've tried (six different models) were uniformly excellent in this respect, and better than most other cartridges I've heard. Paradoxically, they also require the records to be cleanest to perform their best. The tiniest fleck of dust will impair micro-dynamics, imaging and soundstaging without necessarily raising the noise level.

I haven't heard a JMW. I have heard Shelters on a Graham 2.2, Basis Vector and other non-unipivot arms, as most of you know (too well!). Micro-dynamics and imaging were better on the (stabilized) Vector than on the (less stabilized) Graham, and arms with more stable bearings did better still. That was the origin of my comment about unstabilized unipivots vs. other designs. This was only one system and five or six arms, so I may be all wet in my conclusions. That's just what I heard.

Dougdeacon:

Wow, thanks for such and ereudite discussion! This explains a lot.
So I guess the critical question is this: Will the JMW 9 arm allow
one of the better ZYX cartrides display their excellent detail retreival properties, or is the law of dinishing returns alive and well in this arm.
Is is more reasonable to use one of the sub $1000 Dynavectors, Helikons?
Will something like the Airy 2 shine or will its potential be wasted?
Certainly the Shelter 501 has many proponents. I'm willing to spring for the $$$
for the airy if its' potential is realized.
Thanks again
JIm

Jim,

The JMW-9's fairly low effective mass actually makes a ZYX a better *theoretical* match than a Shelter, at least as far as compliance is concerned.

To get optimal bass and dynamics from a ZYX on a fairly low mass arm you'd need to increase mass at the headshell by 6g or so, much as VPI recommends and supplies a headshell weight for cartridges like Shelters.

ZYX offers their own optional weight on the Airy 2 and above. Another option would be choose a less costly ZYX and use VPI's headshell weight or fabricate your own.

Would you hear the difference between an Airy 2 and your Grado Statement Sonata? Absolutely. The differences are enormous, beyond comparison even. Would you hear "everything" the Airy 2 is capable of? Frankly I don't know, since I've never heard/used a JMW. You might ask Mehran. He probably has JMW owners using his cartridges. Or post that question here or on VA.

Whether you should choose Lyra, Shelter, ZYX or something else depends alot on your sonic goals and musical tastes. Since imaging and soundstaging are what you mentioned first I'd focus on Lyra, ZYX and possibly Dynavector. At sub-$4K price levels Lyras are a touch lean, cool or analytical. Dyna's a trace rich in the mids. ZYX's fall in between, they always seem to be neutral. It's a matter of matching your tastes and system.

BTW, make sure you have appropriate gain and impedance from your phono stage before buying any LOMC. Otherwise you're wasting your money.

Dear Jim: Like other already posted the soundstage depends on many factors: tonearm/cartridge matching, speakers/room interaction, phonopreamp, amplifier, cables, manipulation on the record process by the sound engineer, load impedance, VTA/VTF, Azimuth, etc., etc,. You think that the Grado is the culprit but I'm not sure ( I never heard your cartridge model ) there are several factors about and for what Rushton posted the Grados are very good cartridges, not perfect but good cartridges.

What I'm worried is that you have " deficient image placement ", this could tell me that you have not only the Grado problem ( and I don't know if the Grado is the problem ) but maybe a phonopreamp problem because lesser cartridges with lesser TT/tonearm/electronics almost always have good to very good imaging, this audio reproduction characteristic ( Imaging ) is relative easy to achieve for almost any audio system that are not faulty, that's why I presume that you have some problems other/additional to your Grado cartridge and those problems could be on your phono stage or phono cable or both or your Grado is out of specs: something is out of synergy there. I don't think that " unipivot or not unipivot " was the main problem and certain not the stylus profile.

Now, why don't try to borrow a different cartridge/phono cable or phono stage for a friend or some one and test on your system and see what happen.

Btw, there is something that I can't understand or at least I don't have an answer for sure: you post that the tonal balance on your system is from good to excellent ( I understand on CD and LP, right? ) and I don't know which speakers do you own but it is extremely rare that an audio system where its tonal balance ( I understand this top to bottom in the frequency audio range )( one of the most important music reproduction characteristic ) is right on target has a deficient imaging.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.