I agree wholeheartedly with the majority of your observations. I also shouldn't be "knocking" any comments regarding trying to help someone or promote the use of vinyl. For that i apologize.
Since many people are jumping back into vinyl with "cold feet", i was simply trying to provide them with an alternative viewpoint. My experience is that if someone can spend less money and get better overall results, they are all for it. This is not to say that the Stanton is the "end all" product, only that it is a very worthwhile contender for their cash. As everyone knows, there is always room to move in audio.
As you mentioned, the newer Shure is a big leap forward from their older cartriges and i think that most people that have heard it agree. The biggest difference seems to be in the upper registers. Improvements in air, space and overall "open-ness" are duly noted. They have basically "cleaned house" and you are left with a cleaner, less congested presentation.
As to the cantilever design, i think that this is what was hurting them in the past. Their last design made use of a thin walled telescoping design to minimize tip mass. As with any telescoped design, there is a certain amount of "play" between joints. While the basic idea was there, it obviously needed refining.
They were obviously trying to reduce tip mass but forgot about a few other factors. While low tip mass is a good thing, flexing of the cantilever is not. This tends to produce non-linear distortions and smearing of detail. This is the problem that i heard with the earlier Shure's. It became more obvious as dynamic range increased. This is due to greater vertical deflection of the cantilever which would have caused greater amounts of flexing. As such, the louder the recorded passage became, the greater the amount of distortion generated. If one played mostly "quiet" recordings without a lot of dynamic range ( chamber music, highly compressed recordings, etc...), you might not notice this.
I will give Shure credit in the fact that their older cartridges never sounded "offensive" ( bright and edgy ), made use of low surface noise tips and would work in a wide variety of arms. As such, they were always a "safe" albeit less than optimum choice.
The Stanton approach was much the opposite of Shure's. They chose a very rigid cantilever that may have been slightly heavier, but kept it short as possible. This not only reduced the overall weight, but kept it as rigid as possible. With the shortest path possible from tip to motor structure and flexing reduced to minimal, the result is a greater amount of detail being directly modulated from the groove with less distortion and a more linear output.
As with any cartridge though, you can play with loading characteristics to obtain the best results. The difference in tonearm wiring, interconnects, etc... all need to be addressed if you are going to make an attempt at "vinyl nirvana". Sean
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Since many people are jumping back into vinyl with "cold feet", i was simply trying to provide them with an alternative viewpoint. My experience is that if someone can spend less money and get better overall results, they are all for it. This is not to say that the Stanton is the "end all" product, only that it is a very worthwhile contender for their cash. As everyone knows, there is always room to move in audio.
As you mentioned, the newer Shure is a big leap forward from their older cartriges and i think that most people that have heard it agree. The biggest difference seems to be in the upper registers. Improvements in air, space and overall "open-ness" are duly noted. They have basically "cleaned house" and you are left with a cleaner, less congested presentation.
As to the cantilever design, i think that this is what was hurting them in the past. Their last design made use of a thin walled telescoping design to minimize tip mass. As with any telescoped design, there is a certain amount of "play" between joints. While the basic idea was there, it obviously needed refining.
They were obviously trying to reduce tip mass but forgot about a few other factors. While low tip mass is a good thing, flexing of the cantilever is not. This tends to produce non-linear distortions and smearing of detail. This is the problem that i heard with the earlier Shure's. It became more obvious as dynamic range increased. This is due to greater vertical deflection of the cantilever which would have caused greater amounts of flexing. As such, the louder the recorded passage became, the greater the amount of distortion generated. If one played mostly "quiet" recordings without a lot of dynamic range ( chamber music, highly compressed recordings, etc...), you might not notice this.
I will give Shure credit in the fact that their older cartridges never sounded "offensive" ( bright and edgy ), made use of low surface noise tips and would work in a wide variety of arms. As such, they were always a "safe" albeit less than optimum choice.
The Stanton approach was much the opposite of Shure's. They chose a very rigid cantilever that may have been slightly heavier, but kept it short as possible. This not only reduced the overall weight, but kept it as rigid as possible. With the shortest path possible from tip to motor structure and flexing reduced to minimal, the result is a greater amount of detail being directly modulated from the groove with less distortion and a more linear output.
As with any cartridge though, you can play with loading characteristics to obtain the best results. The difference in tonearm wiring, interconnects, etc... all need to be addressed if you are going to make an attempt at "vinyl nirvana". Sean
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