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Cartridge/Tonearm matching fundamentals?

TWL made a comment on a recent thread about two very nice cartridges (Shelter 501 and Lyra Lydian Beta) not being suitable for a unipivot tonearm like the JMW.

I know nothing about the concepts of matching cartridges and tonearms (nor much about tonearm types) and was wondering if TWL (or a similarly knowledgeable soul) could share some of the basics on the topic with the unenlightened.

I don't understand either the term "higher compliance range", not the different tonearm types (unipivot vs. ?) and thus why, in the thread in question, neither the 501 nor the Beta won't work on a particular tonearm.

As a point of reference, I recently acquired a VPI HW19 MKII with RB600, have purchased but not received a Dynavector 20XH.

Thanks in advance,

Tim Wat
timwat

Showing 2 responses by sean

sean
6,231 posts
 
Nice summary of the "ins and outs" of arm / cartridge matching Twl. I would only add that very high compliance cartridges need very low mass arms. Moving Magnet cartridges with "dampers", "stabilizers" or "brushes" tend to be less finicky about this but one should not stray TOO far from the above "formulas" that Twl was kind enough to provide. Sean
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sean
6,231 posts
 
I've seen / used that "gridded graph" and it did not work out correctly. At least not in the one case that i relied on it. That was enough to teach me that not all "tools" are accurate. While i don't know if it is the same graph ( which i would assume that it was ), If others have used that graph, and it worked for you, please let us know. It is possible that the manufacturer's specs that i used were incorrect or that i just ran into a "freak situation". It would be far too convenient to "write off" such an easy method of arm / cartridge matching if i was the only one that had problems with that specific formula.

For further reading on the subject, try checking out this link to Galen Carol Audio. I think that this has been posted here in the past but wasn't sure, so i figured that i'd throw this one in as another point of reference. Sean
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