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Why do MM cartridges amplify more surface noise??

My concern in the thread is mainly moving magnet cartridges, not MC's I recently purchased an Ortofon 2M Blue MM cartridge which sounds very good with minor exceptions. Prior to the Ortofon, I briefy used an Audio Technica AT120E.

Unfortunately, the Ortofon seems to reproduce much more record surface noise than the AT120E which was remarkably quiet, except on very noisy LP's in my small collection. Without a doubt the Ortofon 2M Blue is a much better cartridge than the AT 120E

So what causes one MM cartridge to provide more LP surface noise than another?? Is it stylus design or materials, or the windings inside the cartridge body?? Is it heavier tracking force??

What MM cartridge in your experience reproduces the least amount of record surface noise??
sunnyjim
john_tracy
341 posts
 
Sounds like maybe too much loading capacitance. Read the Hagerman Cartridge Loading paper. Too much capacitance interacts with the cartridge inductance to make for a resonance peak at the upper bound of the audio band. This would enhance the amount of noise heard.

http://www.hagtech.com/loading.html
lewm
12,849 posts
 
In fact, I do not find your premise to be true. Check out John Tracy's recommendation.

However, I suppose it's conceivable that if a previous owner of a "used" LP habitually used, say, an elliptical stylus that was not properly aligned, and if the next owner of the LP used a cartridge with an elliptical stylus and compared that to a cartridge with e.g. a line contour stylus that rides in a different part of the groove wall, then the latter cartridge may appear to transmit less surface noise. (I don't know whether this circumstance is applicable to your observation.)
rodman99999
6,107 posts
 
Improperly set(positive) VTA/SRA will accentuate the high freqs and surface noise of phono playback. You might try tweaking there. VTF affects the VTA also, so- play with both. (http://www.gcaudio.com/resources/howtos/cartbasics.html)
stringreen's avatar
stringreen
6,440 posts
 
...sounds like a resonance peak to me. I've heard that Ortofon sound fine....there are better, but you can easily live with the Ortofon. I have a Winfield....took forever to break in and is very critical about setup. Works beautifully now....work on yours.
sunnyjim OP
927 posts
 
For the record, both the Ortofon Blue and AT 120 were recommended for the Rega RB301 tonearm. I was pleasantly surprised at the AT120's sound. Its main limitations were the highs, and the soundstage was nether wide nor deep. AT has a lot of MM's out there, especially ML440A which gets good reviews and is compatible with the Rega arms.

To Stringgreen, I will check it over, but will not purchase the tweeks suggestd by Rodman9999; the three devices would exceed the price of both cartridges. The GeoDisc may be old popular analog tech, and not as refined as some products, but it generally gets the job done with more than acceptable results
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