2. analog
  3. 140043-486

Hear my Cartridges....🎶

Many Forums have a 'Show your Turntables' Thread or 'Show your Cartridges' Thread but that's just 'eye-candy'.... These days, it's possible to see and HEAR your turntables/arms and cartridges via YouTube videos.
Peter Breuninger does it on his AV Showrooms Site and Michael Fremer does it with high-res digital files made from his analogue front ends.
Now Fremer claims that the 'sound' on his high-res digital files captures the complex, ephemeral nuances and differences that he hears directly from the analogue equipment in his room.
That may well be....when he plays it through the rest of his high-end setup 😎
But when I play his files through my humble iMac speakers or even worse.....my iPad speakers.....they sound no more convincing than the YouTube videos produced by Breuninger.
Of course YouTube videos struggle to capture 'soundstage' (side to side and front to back) and obviously can't reproduce the effects of the lowest octaves out of subwoofers.....but.....they can sometimes give a reasonably accurate IMPRESSION of the overall sound of a system.

With that in mind.....see if any of you can distinguish the differences between some of my vintage (and modern) cartridges.
VICTOR X1
This cartridge is the pinnacle of the Victor MM designs and has a Shibata stylus on a beryllium cantilever. Almost impossible to find these days with its original Victor stylus assembly but if you are lucky enough to do so.....be prepared to pay over US$1000.....🤪
VICTOR 4MD-X1
This cartridge is down the ladder from the X1 but still has a Shibata stylus (don't know if the cantilever is beryllium?)
This cartridge was designed for 4-Channel reproduction and so has a wide frequency response 10Hz-60KHz.
Easier to find than the X1 but a lot cheaper (I got this one for US$130).
AUDIO TECHNICA AT ML180 OCC
Top of the line MM cartridge from Audio Technica with Microline Stylus on Gold-Plated Boron Tube cantilever.
Expensive if you can find one....think US$1000.

I will be interested if people can hear any differences in these three vintage MM cartridges....
Then I might post some vintage MMs against vintage and MODERN LOMC cartridges.....🤗
128x128halcro
halcro's avatar
halcro OP
2,664 posts
 
Your ears need to be insured for millions 💰Frogman....
Whilst I was recording the Victor Z1/SAS....I could clearly hear in my room....the "extra midrange juice of the Victor" that you picked up.
After recording it.....I realised that I had left the loading of the MM cartridge at 40K Ohms instead of the 60K Ohms that the Victors like...🥴

On playback however....through my iPad.....I heard it like Noromance did, with a richness that seemed to have an advantage over the Palladian so I uploaded it like that.....

I think we need to get ourselves ears like Frogman, Noromance......or at least try to get the same Stax/tube set....👅

It'll be interesting to see what you hear through your digital rig Noromance?
You listen on Tidal don't you?
schubert
7,386 posts
 
Your ears can be just as good as frogman’s, our walking encyclopedia on all thinks musical .

First step is to listen to live acoustic music for about 60, 000 hours , maybe 50,000 if you do the playing and either way take Music Theory 101-102 at a
university School of Music at the same time .You can read the 4-500
musical history books at home in your spare time .
halcro's avatar
halcro OP
2,664 posts
 
😄
halcro's avatar
halcro OP
2,664 posts
 
Our quest to find a MM cartridge as close as possible to a current $10,000 Uber LOMC cartridge continues.
Here is a new acquisition....
GLANZ 610LX
A NOS vintage Moving Flux cartridge for which there exists precious little information.
It has a nude line-contact (or Shibata) stylus pressure-fitted into a BERYLLIUM HOLLOW-TUBE CANTILEVER
Technology that no current manufacturer can match or supply...🤗

AS PALLADIAN LOMC CARTRIDGE
This is the $10,000 current LOMC cartridge that Frogman has 'anointed' as 'The Benchmark' in my system (correct me if I'm wrong Frogman 🤔)

GLANZ 610LX
chakster's avatar
chakster
6,144 posts
 
@halcro thanks for the close-up picture of the Glanz 610LX cantilever (finally), now we can see it's completely different in comparison to the Glanz 61 (from 1984) which has a Boron Rod cantilever. The way the stylus is mounted is also different. I have many more high-resolution pictures to post in our glanz thread, some pics and interesting facts are already there in my last messages. 
More to discover