a moving-coil cartridge is an absolute minimum requirement: even the best moving magnet will not be capable of the measuring the extra information in

[Jaxjax]

I worked for Garrard in the 1970s.
There was plenty of science engineering being done then and plenty of knowledge about how it all worked and its strengths and limitations.

For example they had a laser doppler vibration measuring rig (I think doppler is correct, it was the first I had ever seen) in the basement on a big block of suspended concrete to avoid the earth's vibration. One of the record player prototypes had a top deck mode with the arm mount area near an anti-node which meant the cartridge body could be excited and, since the transducing elements don't "know" whether it is the stylus of "stator" that is vibrating this could give spurious output. By clever interpretation of the deck-plate modes the engineer in charge of this rig worked out where a hole could be punced in the pressed steel plate to move the anti-node away from the arm mount - result much better performance for negligible cost in an item that would retail at around £15 back then.

What changed was the onset of subjective reviewing, probably perpetrated by Jean Hiraga, this admitted technically ignorant reviewers into the place and they were unable to separate the propaganda and marketing from engineering fact and probably by the mid 80s almost everything to do with playing records was forgotten or ignored.

It is actually still stupidly full of steady state reasoning being applied to dynamic systems which is just wrong - for example claiming the more rigid a pickup arm is the better it traces the groove, easy for a techniclly illiterate individual to believe but completely wrong.

If anything it is even worse now with the re-birth and ludicrously priced styling excercises.

I left the HiFi business to go Formula 1 racing full time in 1976 and I haven't read any technical papers about record players which give more insight into the engineering of them than was already extant then. Read contemporary B&K papers, we used their test records and measuring equipment, the science was well understood even if engineering targets with such a wide frequency range were hard to achieve.

It has got worse, if anything, facts ignored or not understood, reasoning false and so on. It would be very depressing if LPs were still the main source of recordings for music lovers.

M. Schumacher is my race hero & breath for F1. My dream has always been to be on a balcony rail at Monaco since I was very young. I have many F1 photo's from 60's ,70's up & a few special ones from Monaco. This year's opener was very entertaining indeed. You lived the dream & also lived thru a dangerous era of F1
Sorry to derail thread. I'll stop now

 

[BDWoody]

I have many F1 photo's from 60's ,70's up & a few special ones from Monaco.

I wonder if @Frank Dernie is in any of them.

Any shots of the Williams team?

Sorry to derail thread. I'll stop now

We make special allowances if the coolness factor is high enough.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Any shots of the Williams team?

Yes

 

[Frank Dernie]

M. Schumacher is my race hero

Me with Michael and Ross when I was Chief Engineer at Benetton

 

[MatrixS2000]

Michael Schumacher is the GOAT. Glad to see other F1 fans on here and @Frank Dernie - when I first saw your name here I wondered if it was the same as the Benneton engineer, now I know. Great having you here.

 

[HalSF]

My sense is that in other contexts, a completely rando “personal” observation by a music reviewer contrasting the sound quality of two transducer designs, offered with zero evidence in the subjective spirit of “I can hear it,” would be summarily mocked and dismissed by this forum as worthless and everybody would move on.

But because it’s a claim about vinyl fidelity, it becomes tasty ASR bait leading to a swift surge to echo and extend the already endless scatterbrained “Can anyone explain the vinyl renaissance?” thread/chunterfest and now we’re off to the (F1) races….

 

[Jaxjax]

Me with Michael and Ross when I was Chief Engineer at Benneton
View attachment 437193

I'm in loss for words...Just outstanding & thank you for posting these pictures.

 

[Leporello]

So much nonsense. WTF is "The Quietus"? Sounds fucking ridiculous without looking.....

Reads too. The writing in the Miles article is painfully pretentious and self important:

Dark Magus is a demanding starting point in what could (should?) end up being a string of potentially revelatory re-releases – and, as befits a release presumably intended to put down a marker, the results are certainly impressive: though to what degree will depend on the quality of the system being used to play the record.

 

[gene_stl]

And I am sure that Garard was not in a big hurry to share their engineering testing with other companies. Nor publish it in peer reviewed Journals.

I once built a moving coil pre preamp designed by Jean Hiraga. In the late seventies. It was OK. I used it with an Ortofon MC 20 but then switched to a Technics SL 10 straight line tracking TT which I still use today. It has a built in MC pre preamp. I don't know what I will do if the stylus falls of the boron cantilever.

 

[thewas]

I don't know what I will do if the stylus falls of the boron cantilever.

Am quite positive that if you search you will find someone that will re-tip it. Only take good care of the cantilever because that cannot be exchanged that easily.

 

[gene_stl]

I am told there are some good "retippers". But I am hesitant to give them four to six hundred dollars without knowing much more about their processes. I would most likely switch over to my Pioneer PLC 590 which still runs perfectly equipped with a Stax arm and a V15 iv and call it a day.

 

[Palmer]

After finally tracking down an OEM Stylus for my recently acquired Signet TKN7LCa, I can report that there is not much audible difference between it and my Benz Micro MC cartridges.
I am sure the Beryllium cantilever helps. And I can get it re-tipped at some point. I will have to mount it on the same arm and table I run the vastly more expensive top of the line Benz on to do some serious listening, but it has already been a revelation so far.