Analogue Synergy....Which is the best Cartridge?

Moving from your Basik to a Scout is a lateral move. That's why I wrote about Mr. Linn technician, Van Alstine & others who've installed outboard power supplies.

I can describe the sound as being smooth, but it lacks detail in the treble and the bass is a bit round and overly soft. If I were to compare the sound to my Ayre C-5xe Universal player, my digital source would definitely be the winner.

Lack of detail in the treble is due to the cartridge, the softness in the bass mostly due to stylus drag effects. It does not really matter you have a very good transport/player--all CDs/SACDs have *perfect* pitch and your ears will notice that even if you listen to a cheap player bought at a department store. CD bass is deep and tight; to rival this a TT would need excellent speed/rotational stability and you will not get that with a Scout either. Far from it.

The KAB website has a LOT of information on vinyl playback. Though mostly geared to 78 RPM record collectors it is nonetheless up to date. Remember, a fool and his money are soon parted.

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Pressure equals force over surface area. I did not make that up, Audiofeil. It's simple physics. I just referred to record & stylus wear, not cartridge design & quality control parameters. DJ cartridges have spherical tips, too and DJ pressings will last a rather long time of use and abuse. There are reasons for that.

Your records should sound this good but you'll never know given your current arrangement.

You don't know my "current arrangement" and you're no psychic. No, I'm not into the audio snob market like you do (tell this guy you're an outrageously expensive audio *boutique* dealer, please) but I have $30,000 sound & spent way less than a third of that. The power delivery/noise control part of the rig has a list value of $7K alone. That's the kind of juice I feed my components.

I know a joker when I see him--like the Cartridge Man (you sell his products, don't you?). Hell, it really impresses the *unaware* with this 'critical' tracking force of 1.58g +/- 0.05g. What you and him don't say is how someone will calibrate a weight scale to that precision in a home environment. I mean, calibration is a VERY periodic activity and readings in the 0.01g range must be done with no air movement, like any other analytical scale. Would you also want to bang around such a delicate instrument via UPS for each calibration? Get real.

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Psychicanimal, I'm not a dealer, and I have no dog in this hunt. I own one cart with a VdH Type 1 stylus, an A-T with a Micro Linear, and the 103R. I go back far enough in record playing (about 30 years) to have had a few others. At least for me, I've found that the best way to insure minimal wear on my disks - regardless of which cart I am using - is to make sure the TT, arm, and cart are set up as well as possible and to treat my records with cleaning and preservation solutions. I'm hoping we can all agree with these basic requirements.

I have no microscopic analysis to prove it, but my records still seem to be in very fine shape. A friend who has copies of the same records (some 20 or so years old) sometimes comes over and brings his; in many cases there is a clear difference in the way his sounds (more noise, etc). He does not take as much care of his TT regimen as I do.

BTW, the pressure on the small surface area of a microridge or line contact type stylus will be on the order of 4-5 times that of a larger elliptical or spherical stylus tip. While I agree that a more modern tip is better suited to produce less wear, it is moreso because the shape is better suited to tracing the groove. When all's said and done, though, IMHO you have to really go out of your way to induce significant record wear on a private collection.

Take a look at this, and in particular the last major paragraph on this page.

http://www.micrographia.com/projec/projapps/viny/viny0300.htm

Thanks, Tony. Very good artricle--especially explaining saliva is used as a cleaning solvent!!!

This is from the link you provided:

Various refinements on the elliptical stylus principle have been developed, and are well explained and illustrated in this link to the Needle Express website FAQ page. The objective of all the design types is to increase the area of contact between the stylus and the wall of the groove in a vertical direction.

The high cost of these styli is a consequence of the careful grinding and polishing required to achieve the required profile, and the very exacting task of mounting the stylus in the cantilever so that the narrow axis of the ellipse is perpendicular to the line if the groove. This cost is offset somewhat by the reduced rate of wear on both stylus and records.

Thorsten, the European audio reviewer, states that he has a TT with two tonearms: one of them has a cartridge with a radial stylus because a lot of records were mastered with Scully lathes that electronically modified the musical signal to cancel the *distortions* caused by playing a record with a spherical stylus. If such is the case, then playing those recordings with a spherical stylus is the way to go and one more reason to prefer digital. That's why I have a belt drive transport reengineered by Dan Wright--to counteract the hassles of vinyl.

Danny Boy's my home boy, Audiofeil. Helped personally guiding me (along with Dusty Vawter, Kevin Barrett and Robert Ridge Street) and performing surgery on speakers and electronic x-over so that I would have the sound I now have.

Perhaps I'm wasting my money having Kevin @ KAB solder a Super Stereohedron stylus on this NOS Stanton Trackmaster I cartridge I got in eBay for $54.95. It already came with a radial stylus...

I'm in no hunt, Tony, but I'm against making people feel that a lot of money (or 'critical' conditions) are necessary in order to achieve sonic bliss--and if you don't you're a loser. That's why I used the outboard power supply examples. If Calgaryman does that he's going to have real trouble finding another belt drive that's worth the big money leap. I mean, look at Van Alstine-his gear is great sounding, well made, reliable and very seldom seen on the used market. My TT is better than his but he does make a real valid point: his TT is good enough.

Are you interested in trying one of them non resonant, Moca wood cartridge isolators that are soon to be passed around? I had a Moca board made for Sean's rack (amigo deal for my cable chef >>> free) and his comment was that Moca is about as perfect of a material as it can be. No Voodoo here--just good ol' Mother Nature at work. Stay tuned to AudioCircle.

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Sounds like a real nice bedroom system.

Congratulations.