2. analog
  3. 1315713166

Cartridge Loading and Compliance Laws

After reading into various threads concerning cartridge/arm compatibility, then gathering information from various cartridge manufacturers I am left feeling confused with head spinning a bit.... Ok, cart compliance I get, arm and total mass I get, arm/cart compatibility and the whole 8-12 Hz ideal res. freq. range I get. But why on earth then do some phono cartridge mfgs claim their carts are ok to use with med. mass common modern arms when they are in the highish 20-35cu compliance range? Am I missing something??

Ie. Soundsmith, VanDenHul, Ortofon and who knows, maybe more??

From what I gather, below 8Hz is bad and above 12Hz is bad. If one is less ideal than the other, which is worse I wonder, too low res. freq. or too high?
jeremy72

Showing 1 response by dgarretson

dgarretson
2,586 posts
 
To experiment with variations in vertical inertial mass I added dual counterweights to the wand of a Trans-Fi linear tonearm. This is the high-mass version for medium-to-low compliance cartridges:

http://cgim.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/vs.pl?vaslt&1140494870&viewitem&o11

I also made a low-mass version for medium- and high- compliance cartridges. This version uses 7-20 gm counterweights.

The optimal adjustment resolves tracking problems such as edginess and sibilance. Too much inertial mass takes the life out of the music. My experience suggests that the Mapleshade weights would be too heavy-- particularly on a long moment arm.

It's great to be done with the math and to resolve each situation empirically.
More to discover