Any of you experiment with optimal VTA for Benz Micro Cartridges
Well I recently bought my first really high end turntable - Transrotor Fat Bob S - and it came with a Benz Micro Ebony L cartridge. I don't know what the hell I'm doing in terms of turntables and I'm utterly mystified by how anyone knows about what "tail" their cartridge prefers. Looks like I'll have to bookmark this thread and do some learnin'. |
@jperry Thanks. I barely can remember the difference between a MC and a MM cartridge (in fact, if you asked me right how...I couldn't tell you before having to look it up again). But I've had a much more turntable-experienced pal advising me so I think I'm ok. Some info I found on my Benz L cartridge: The Ebony L (.26mV at 3.54cm/sec, 5ohm coil impedance) optimizes with high gain phono stages (>60dB) with input impedance of less than 300 ohms or when using step-up transformers. And this is the phono stage I bought: http://www.myaudioelectronics.com/eng/itemdetails.asp?id=P000001 It seems (as far as I understand it) to have the flexibility to accommodate the Benz cartridge. |
Good to have that confirmed, Jim. BTW, what is the point of a manufacturer making such a low output cartridge? It seems to me in theory come with the liabilities of higher noise in the system, not to mention needing a phono stage with enough gain. I seem to remember once reading that low output MC cartridges had at least in theory some advantage for sound quality, but I'm not sure what it is. |
Thanks for the link folkfreak. I'm trying not to be sucked into too much tweakery as far as turntables go, though of course I want to have good performance. I intend to have someone from a local high end store set up the turntable to ensure I'm off on the right foot. (It was purportedly already set up by the dealer of the person I bought it from, though I have no idea if anything might have drifted due to the turntable being transported in my car). But...if there are in fact tools that make some DIY adjustments easy enough I may grab one, such as the project align-it tool. |
Thanks for the optimistic comments, audiom3. Makes me excited to finally listen to my turntable...sometime soon once I've re-done my rack to accommodate it. For years, playing vinyl now and then, I've used an older micro seiki dd-40 turntable given to me by my father-in-law. It sounded great. But the turntable and cartridge were both around 37 years old or so, and since I was finding myself more heavily into vinyl I figured time to upgrade to a modern table. It was only when I researched selling my Micro Seiki that I discovered it was such a venerated old table. But I had already committed to buying my new one. Plus I wanted to upgrade from my cheap, very old Rotel phono stage a pal had given me decades ago. I am loving buying lots of vinyl again (aside from my bank account) but at the same time I didn't want to make the turntable part of my system in to a new hobby itself. I didn't want to buy low, and then wonder what I could get if I spent more, and go through the upgrading turntable, cartridges, etc. I was willing to throw the top amount of money I'd be willing to spend on a turntable at the issue the first time and be done with it. I was first focused on the VPI Prime Signature Rosewood turntable. I'm an absolute sucker for audio jewlery aesthetics and that table is a beauty. But then a friend pointed me to the Transrotor Fat Bob being sold locally - quite a rare item to come for sale, especially nearby, no shipping involved. It was an as-new item, barely used, came with 12" Transrotor arm, additional external motor control (usually extra) AND the over $3,000 Micro Benz cartridge thrown in. That's a value of around $15,000 CDN and I could get all that for even less than I'd pay for the VPI new, and the VPI wouldn't even come with a cartridge! That was a deal I couldn't pass up. So, hear I am, excited to hear the new beastie in my home. I'm sure I'll enjoy the sound and knowing I got as much (more actually) turntable as I'd ever want to throw money at, I'll not be second guessing and wanting to upgrade. I'm done. (Unless for some reason the sound sucks...) |
@audiom3, @artemus_5 I've finally started listening to my new Transrotor turntable with my Benz Micro Ebony L cartridge. The sound is incredibly clear, spacious, focused and free of hash. Being a newbie, I'm still wondering about the recommendation to try running the cartridge "wide open @47k." Which I presume is the impedance setting? I don't understand what "wide open" means. But on my JE Audio phono stage, it makes it easy to select impedance/gain settings using buttons on the front of the unit. You can see close up photos of the front panel here: http://www.monoandstereo.com/2017/06/je-audio-hp-10-phono-amplifier-review.html The MC impedance values I can select from are: 10 - 33 - 100 - 250 - 500 I was told since it's an MC cartridge to start out setting impedance at "100" as a good baseline. Artemus, you said to try 47k which is "the default for MM cartridges" and I see that aligned with the "100" value for MC cartridges is "47" on the MM cartridge line. Does that mean that the 100 value I've chosen amounts to the 47 value you suggest for MM? I'm not sure how this works as I've plugged my phono arm into the MC input and I'm using those values. Thus far the 100 impedance setting yields a gorgeous clarity and lushness, but in absolute terms it's a tad on the "dark" side, slightly rolled off. Since I was told by my turntable pal that increasing impedance tends to brighten the sound, I tried the next highest setting of 250. This indeed brightened the sound, giving back more air and that golden sparkle to things like cymbals and acoustic metal guitar strings that I really like. It definitely sounds more accurate - for instance playing the same CD master against the vinyl of an album, the vinyl sounds more like the CD on the 250 setting. But, things can get a tad analytical/piercing on this setting as well. So I'm not sure what is left in the toolbox in tweaking the sound to my liking. My ideal would be to have a dial between the 100 and 250 impedance setting where I could get a mix of that lushness and spaciousness of the 100 setting, and the more accurate sparkle of the 250 setting. Does adjusting things like VTA or the "head/tail" angle of the cartridge alter the sound and in what type of ways? Thanks! |
Ah...just had a conversation with my turntable buddy...he's saying if I find the 250 impedance setting on the phono stage maybe edging into a bit piercing it would only get worse using the MM input and going way up to 47k impedance. That seems to make sense, if generally going up in impedance make for brighter sound. So I'm wondering how that actually worked for others here? Also, he pointed out I'd lose quite a bit of gain, as the phono stage can only give up to 45db gain for MM vs the 65db gain I'm using on the MC setting. |
