One of the most important things is making sure the cart is compatible with your tone arm. All the other things you mention won't matter much if your tone arm mass is not compatible with the carts compliance. After that flat FR and low distortion ( which seems to me to be related to tracking ability). I like MC because they are not sensitive to loading so it's easier to get consistent performance but there are plenty of good MM as well. The last thing I would take into consideration would be "flowery words".
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MM vs MI vs MC
- Thread starter watchnerd
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Holmz
Major Contributor
The tone arm is an SAEC WE317 arm, and there is a heavy counterweight for use with 20.5 to 35 gram+ (headshell + cart).
The standard counterweight is 14.5 to 20.5 grams.
SAEC WE-317S Concealed Double Knife-Edge Tonearm Manual | Vinyl Engine
I acquired a Korf headshell and another one (which I forget at the moment.)
It is 13 grams: http://korfaudio.com/
They have a calculator http://korfaudio.com/calculator
However I could not find the effective mass of the tonearm.
"lucky dog" - who from memory was also a physicist posted this method for calculating effective tonearm mass about 12 years ago...
www.vinylengine.com
Measuring Tonearm Effective Mass- Vinyl Engine
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Measurements from the Audio Technica Studio Reference series.
As with all my graphs, the dip at 5kHz and bumps between 14-18kHz are the test record, when reading smooth out and lower the latter by about 1 dB.
Consistent sound throughout the line. Obviously the styli and distortion are the differences.
As with all my graphs, the dip at 5kHz and bumps between 14-18kHz are the test record, when reading smooth out and lower the latter by about 1 dB.
Consistent sound throughout the line. Obviously the styli and distortion are the differences.
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F
freemansteve
Guest
I have nothing to add on the subject of running small hard stones in grooves in vinyl, feeding various mechanical layouts to create a signal - and no knowledge of it all.
But indulge me with a legit. question:
When I was younger, there was the concept of tracking the groove on an LP with a laser, which I reckoned to be pretty neat and far less destructive for the vinyl.... Whatever happened to that idea? Was it tried and proven to be terrible? Was the tech of the day not up to the job? Was it too expensive back then?
Maybe this is being done today, but I haven't seen it - wanna educate me?
But indulge me with a legit. question:
When I was younger, there was the concept of tracking the groove on an LP with a laser, which I reckoned to be pretty neat and far less destructive for the vinyl.... Whatever happened to that idea? Was it tried and proven to be terrible? Was the tech of the day not up to the job? Was it too expensive back then?
Maybe this is being done today, but I haven't seen it - wanna educate me?
ELP. Still around. Commonly cited issue is that the laser can't tell the difference between groove and debris. They're also a bit pricey. Almost picked a used one up once, but I've enough spinning junk around here.
digitalfrost
Major Contributor
Taking this one step further. With todays cameras, shouldn't I be able to "rip" a vinyl just by taking a picture and decoding the sound in software? Software-definded vinyl? Why even play it with the time constraint that the recording time is identical to the playback time. Just take a picture and you're done.
thewas
Master Contributor
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It can be done, although with normal optical scanners/imagine in very low quality, see https://ofersp.github.io/digital_needle
For better results different methods need to be used, see also http://irene.lbl.gov/ and https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/vinyl-scanner.165078/#post-2154272
Are you sure about the bump between 14-18khz being test record related?
That's easy to determine by running the record at a different speed.
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I am basing this on my first set of measurements, for which I compared multiple CBS records. Having a V15 V-MR doesn't hurt either
.(Having multiple V15 V-MRs that show the same behavior also doesn't hurt
)This is a good idea, thank you. I'll try this out during the weekend to double check.
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Helicopter
Major Contributor
Critical step with test records that have square waves too.
STR-100 test record sweep track
Newman
Master Contributor
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Thanks, the reason I ask is because I understand that a sweep tone test is too easy and gives an unrealistically good FR. Music is more wideband.
A wideband tone FR will give an FR measurement more representative of complex music with numerous instruments playing together.
Unfortunately they are not all that similar, eg
The top is the spot frequency FR, which would be much like a sweep tone FR, and the bottom is a wideband tone FR of the same cartridge (Rega Exact).
It would be easy to get cocky about the flat response of cartridges using the sweep tone, when in fact they are not doing so well at all with music.
The really ugly reality, that the discrepancy between the above two graphs tells us, is that the FR of a cartridge is chaotically jumping up and down as the music varies from simpler to more complex. Ugh!
cheers
A wideband tone FR will give an FR measurement more representative of complex music with numerous instruments playing together.
Unfortunately they are not all that similar, eg
The top is the spot frequency FR, which would be much like a sweep tone FR, and the bottom is a wideband tone FR of the same cartridge (Rega Exact).
It would be easy to get cocky about the flat response of cartridges using the sweep tone, when in fact they are not doing so well at all with music.
The really ugly reality, that the discrepancy between the above two graphs tells us, is that the FR of a cartridge is chaotically jumping up and down as the music varies from simpler to more complex. Ugh!
cheers
And/or it tells you something about test records.
All the cartridges that shipped with measured specs, had their specs measured using sweeps...
Pink noise tracks are a more representative test... but there have been concerns about the reliability of some pink noise tracks
I have not been able to match the sweep tests using a pink noise track. - The very best carts get close...
Pink noise tracks are a more representative test... but there have been concerns about the reliability of some pink noise tracks
I have not been able to match the sweep tests using a pink noise track. - The very best carts get close...
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