are moving coils actually better than MM's?

Seriously? Don't want to be a doubter but I never heard that. Was this a universal practice or just some record companies? When did this practice end? If its true then it means we should all need two arms (or at least two carts) - which'd be kinda cool

I'm not sure it can be a universal truth though. My old V15 had a micro ridge stylus and didn't seem to show end of side distortion ever. Indeed with some records which were really quite old and worn (a couple of beatles yellow and black parlophiones spring to mind), it seemed to cut through that far better than the Ortofon 510 and 530 I had before that.

 

Hi,

The "tracing simulator" was build into all later cutting lathes. It had of course a bypass switch. If and how often it was used is another question. At the time it was considered "best practice" to cut with it engaged. So, anyone who cut using commercial Cutting Services or their own (meaning all large Companies and their sub and attached labels) are likely to have used them most of the time. The tracing simulator is actually a great idea and works well in a world where all consumer cartridges have spherical or mild elliptical stylii.

Here some info on this and other vinyl issues

And here an interview with Stan Ricker (Mobile Fidelity cutting Engineer) on what was standard in ctting recod in those days....

When LP's went out of the mainstream, and even then only largely. It is easier to say with classical if a tracing simulator was on or not, pop/rock are so distorted by nature that you only notice it when the record sounds too "agressive", but even then it may be the mix.

Yes, you need a spherical (or mild elliptical) stylus cartridge. If you cannot live with just a Denon DL-103(R) for a little over 100 Quid then you need a spherical stylus EMT or Ortfon SPU or Kondo's $ 15,000 IO. Or you get a second arm & cartridge. I have three BTW.... ;-)

Nothing is universal and the tracing simulator pre-distortion is fairly low order.

End of side distortion is not the same as that caused by using a tracing simulator.

The "old" V15 had a spherical stylus, the new (current) V15 has a hyuper elliptical stylus. Which do you have? Also, what methode did you use to align the cartridge?

Ciao T

 

Hi,

I ryme too....

There once was a buffoon
who played on a bassoon
and said in a million years
I shall certainly hit a tune.

L8er T

 

Interesting links. There's nothing like having standards eh

It was a V15VxMR with the micro ridge stylus and I used a baerwald two point alignment. Currently using a Denon DL-160 which I think has a "Special" eliptical stylus - not sure what that means exactly.

Hmm. Food for thought. But was just wondering. Presumably a spherical stylus isn't going to be up there with the exotic stylus shapes in terms of information retrieval nor is it going to do as well re end of side - is this artificial "anti distortion" the only thing that really recommends old style speherical styli?

 

Hi,

Ahhh, i'd call that the "new" Shure.

You might want to try for comparison an alignment which minimises tracking error near the inner grooves.

Me neither, but probably more elliptical than hyperelliptical.

Not neccesarily. You need to consider the Cartridge as a whole. Under ideal conditions my Goldring Elite outperforms the Denon 103(R) on information retrieval, but only slightly. Given a choice (which I have as it takes me around 5 seconds to switch) I use the DL-103 most often. Also, simply geometry suggests that it takes only a few degrees of SRA error before the "line contact" stylus is sufficiently misaligned to be phusically "larger" than a spherical one.

Further, I would suspect that a stock DL-103 will easily outperform the DL-160 on resolution, strictly by it's massively lower armature (moving) mass, the DL-103R is another small step up due to further lowered moving mass.

Depends on many factors, much of what is claimed about the benefits of hyperelliptical stylii is marketing only.

Nope, generally there are a number of reasons why a mild elliptical or spherical stylus is a very good choice, often better than that of a hyperelliptical one.

The development of more extreme stylus shapes mirrored that of lower distortion amplifiers, someone started it and to compete the industry went down all one way, without ever asking "does this really make sense".

Ciao T

 

Wow, Thorsten, fantastic info., you are teaching us all about the finer points of vinyl.

So in general....there are:

4 kinds of cartridge? moving magnet, coil, decca type and ...?

3 kinds of stylus....spherical, elliptical, and hyper elliptical

...but the hyper is really not worth bothering with if you can't set it up accurately enough?

I am just wondering what happens when a record goes around...ie.

it revolves say at 33rpm...does this mean 5cm/second, and the cartridge gives a proportional output?( usually taken at 1khz?)

 

Hi,

Yes, you have Moving magnet, Moving iron (Grado type, also called "variable reluctance" - describes my reaction to work), Moving Coil and Decca. On top you had cartridges using strain gauges (Win Labs) and optical pickups, plus now you have the ELP Laser Pickups, wjhich uses in effect laser interferometers to decode the groove.

Yes, boundaries are somewhat fluent, except for a spherical stylus. Hyperelliptical describes all sorts of "line contact" designs. Each of those will then of course have a radius in the actual active area...

I have a tendency to say that hyper elliptical stylii really should only be used in linear tracking arms, with extreme care paid to alignment and with very easy and continous (ideally remote controlled) SRA/VTA adjustment, preferably with a memory system to easily call up the correct SRA for each record. There are one or two of those arms in existence, but they are hideously expensive.

BTW, the above does not stop me from using a hyperelliptical stylus cartridge in a normal tonearm, but it really only works well with special care to setyup and even then for only 10 - 20% of my LP's.

No, the velocity of the groove varies from around 500mm/s (outer grooves) to 210mm/s (inner grooves).

the 5cm/s is actually the velocity of the signal cut at a nominal "0db". BTW, the maximum standardised cutting velocity is 25cm/s so you know there is 14db headroom build into the LP. Most cartridges track up to around 32cm/s at the max.

Yes, proportional to the cutting velocity. Of course, there is also EQ applied....

Ciao T

 

Just a thought. If the distortion is deliberately put in by the "tracing simulator" can it be removed, say in the phono stage? If it were switch on and offable, you could use a hyper eliptical and use the button for records which have this "feature".

 

Hi,

That would be doable I suspect, but not straightforward, but as hyperelliptical stylii do not really have any material advantages in reality (as opposed to marketing hype), over spherical stylii, why not just use a spherical stylus?

Ciao T

 

GROAN!!

Seriously, though - thanks Thorsten, very informative. Any recommendations for spherical stylus carts (other than the Denon..?)

Cheers,

Dunc

 

Because that way you would only need one stylus.

 

Hi,

Affordable - Denon DL-103 & DL-103R (they are seriously good too), certain very low ranking MM's from various makers, including Goldring (but MM's have their own setup problems).

Less Affordable - Ortofon SPU-G, some EMT's and EMT based Einstein

Not Affordable - a variety of rather extreme Japanese creations, most notably Kondo (ANJ) IO.

Ciao T

 

Hi,

Of course. As noted, what you need is a spherical stylus cartridge of high quality... ;-)

Ciao T

 

Hmmm. But wouldn't you then have a problem with records where the "Tracing Simulator" hasn't been applied?

 

Hi,

True, but these would still be less than those you get from a misaligned (SRA) hypereeliptical stylus.

This Month HiFi+ contains some interesting tidbits on the sensitivity of extreme stylus shapes to SRA/VTA. It is in the section on the Demos they where running at the Manchester HiFi Show (mostly Mercury Living Presence record related). A few points of a degree off in SRA means for a hyper elliptical stylus the difference between "great" and "below average".

To me it's too much hassle, so I keep a fairly expensive Cartridge/Arm combo (£ 850, not that much by current standards but still among the best I have heard) on my Table merely to play the few records that actually sound great with it, while the staple is an insultingly cheap setup of an SME 3009 I bought for 25 Quid at the Vintage HiFi Fair in Tunbridge Wells a few years ago and a Denon DL-103R from www.diyhifisupply.com for around 125 Quid (due to good dollar exchange ratio and customs not taxing my small postal parcel).

In fact, I'm thinking of possibly mostly "disarming" my table and living with just SME & Denon, as my wife finds the multiple arms and cartridges confusing (we all make compromises for love). Maybe I'll swap my expensive stuff for a second standby Denon and 12" SME Arm, I could certainly happily live that way (J.C. Verdier does).

 

Is the 103R a spherical tip?

 

Hi,

Yes.

Ciao T

 

T, did you say the 103s have alnico magnets? still?

which cheapish mm's are good, I have a goldring 1042, but that has one of the gyger stylus.(hyperelliptical?)

as an aside, the mm picks up hum from the motor, is that likely due to the larger no of turns on an mm?

I just did a search for 103 varieites, people, check this out!! there may be more

103
d
fl
gl
gold
lc
lc-2
m
pro
r
s

 

Hi,

Last I heard, yes, but I'm not sure about the fancy "improved" versions. The Standard 103 still has the exact design from the early 60's, alnico magnets and all, the 103R simply has coils wound with fewer turns of thinner wire to give less moving mass and halve the output of the stock 103, otherwise it is identical.

I used to have this one and the Reson versions. Very sensitive to capacitive loading, which together with the VTA sensitivity can make adjustment daunting. I myself found it a bit of a chore, so with hindsight while a cartridge with good potential my recommendation in my review was perhaps wrongly placed.

But in those days I still had fallen hook, line and stinker for the prevailing propaganda perpetuated by cartridge makers and the HiFi press that "Sharper needles are allways better!".

The MM has (out of neccessity) an open magnetic structure that is extremely sensitive to small changes in magnetic field (in an MC the coil is very insenstive to magnet field changes as it is within a hughely powerfull static magnet field).

Ciao T

 

How about the Grado MI carts?

I'm keen to try one of these out.