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CartridgeCompatability:Arm/Amp Most Important?


I'm trying to select a cartridge to match my system.

In your experience, is the tonearm-cartridge interface more important, or does the cartridge-phono stage have greater effect on compatibility?

Or is this another of the gray areas that only experience can assess? I'd rather not buy eleven cartridges, to the tune of $40,000 (that I don't have)before finding a strong and satisfying combination.

Technics SP10 MkIIa table, Acos Lustre STA-801 arm, Aurum Acoustics phono stage in Aurum CDP integrated preamp.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Best,
David
128x128cdk84

Showing 1 response by amater

amater
56 posts
 
The choice of the cartridge depends on the characteristics of the arm (and the budget of course). The basic rule is that the arm must have an optimal weight in relation to the compliance of the cartridge, which is determined by their resonance frequency, which must be between 8-10 Hz (some set a ceiling at 11 or 12 Hz). This means that the light arm requires a cartridge with high compliance and vice versa. The website
http://www.fl-electronic.de/analog/tonarme.html
shows the Lustre's effective mass, which is 10 grams. A table obtained at Vinylengine for this effective mass shows data (compliance and weight) for appropriate/optimal cartridge:
http://www.vinylengine.com/cartridge_resonance_evaluator.php?eff_mass=10&submit=Submit

See also:
http://www.theanalogdept.com/cartridge___arm_matching.htm
or
http://www.mh-audio.nl/MySystem/RF.asp
or
http://www.resfreq.com/resonancecalculator.html
etc.

P.S. There is an online information about Acos Lustre STA-801's cartridge weight range, which is 13.5g – 28 g (including headshell).
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