Detachable Head shell or Not?

and can be extremely expensive:

R.

@jafox   :Btw, Reed tonearms could be a good alternative to you and I understand that you can have not only DIN connector but a choice in the tonearm internal wire.

R.

The intention to experience the different wire options as a wire that can be used as an Internal Tonearm Wire, is a kind of 'last, but not least' investigation.

I have felt quite satisfied and confident in the performance of the assembly of devices in the  home system for a very long time, which ended with the decision being made, that the next area of investigation was to be the ancillaries used as interfaces between the devices.

This started out quite basic, with methods investigated to support the devices in use, and as a result, a variety of ancillaries are in use as equipment support designs / structures.

Running Parallel with the above was the removal of certain Interconnect Cables for New Cables that had modern Wire Designs in use, and I slowly ended up producing a System that was using OCC Silver and OCC Copper Wire Cables at most of the Interfaces as umbilical couplings in the Signal Path.  It was this experience that moved myself on from being a Cable Agnostic and I was quite impressed with the performance achieved through the adding and discarding a Cable until the presentation was attuned to my unique preference.

The investigation were rested with the devices and ancillaries for a few years and the System was enjoyed for the musical encounters it was able to produce.

A new encounter motivated an investigation of the other simple method available to myself to experience new interfaces within the system. Which was to be achieved through embracing the concept of Tube Rolling.

The initial stimuli for this was having joined a HiFi Group and then meeting a individual who has a vast experience of Valves, who is in possession of a Two Generation collection of vintage valves of which there are multiple pristine samples.

The HiFi Group were keen to encourage that my owned Valve Output Stage DAC, Valve Hybrid Phon' , All Valve Input / Output Phon' and the 845 Power Amp's Input Valves were all assessed by the owner of the collection and Valves were suggested to be used for upcoming Tube Rolling demonstrations, to be carried out with Loaned Valves from the collection of Vintage Valves. As I was not always available for a Group Meeting I loaned a device to the Group, and a shortlist of Valve Options would be made known for a a time when I was able to attend.  

A lot of Valves were supplied and various configurations were created. The impact on the device was very noticeable for the improvements made, and when the device was used in the system with the Valve choice made, the effect was even more noticeable. When assessing the Valve influence, consideration was also applied to the Cable Choices made, as these may have also been proportionally instrumental to the overall very good impression being made.

The idea about the Cable Choices led to the curiosity, that now the Valves are known that it be desirable to be acquired, would a carefully considered Cable Exchange further the already good impression made when the acquired Valves are in the System.

I had for a period of time whilst this experimentation was being planned for and taking place, been investigation the very Latest Wire Type Designs that were gaining a popularity in Cables being Marketed from a Selection of Larger Cable Producers Products.

Cable containing the following Wire Types, Hitachi HiFC , 1011, PC Triple C and D.U.C.C were all investigated and reviews were sought out to get a measure on the performance.

What was becoming a commonly seen description was the noticeable improvement PC Triple C and D.U.C.C Wires were having over a OCC Wire Cable.

My first toe dip into this was with an exchange of an Ortofon Cart' Tag Wire to a   PC Triple C tag wire, an initial experience of this Wire was enough to convince myself it was worthy of further investigation for usage as an umbilical at other interfaces.

I tried to acquire PC Triple C Wire as a purpose produced tonearm wire, but learnt the only Tonearm that has it in use, is a $13000 SAEC Model, and it was not an off the shelf wire available for purchase for a Tonearm. 

The Tonearm Builders I am sharing time with and who invite me to their demonstrations of their work, were asked to look into a method to produce a suitable wire for a Tonearm using a stripped back Cable to extract a Wire Strand, but the method has not yet been found to produce a Wire suitable for Internal Wand use  hence the external routed method, as this method will enable the wires to be trialed along with a selection of other wires, as well as with the designers own chosen wire for their models. This should as an experiment further the understanding of these modern Wire Designs in use on a Tonearm, if it is good enough for SAEC in a $13 K arm, there can be no harm in learning of a few things the Company discovered at their design stage.

The motivation to create this demonstration of New Wire Designs on the Tonearms   is solely created from my side, the Tonearm Designers are aware of the compromises that my suggestion to trial the wires can create, when an external mounted wire is used, they remain open minded about the demonstrations and are quite willing to experience my proposals and have already shared between each other a simple solution for mounting routing the Wires and a temporary shielding method, that if all the methods being selected work together, will alleviate the concerns for an unsuccessful demonstration completely. 

From a selfish perspective I am hoping for a PC Triple C or D.U.C.C Tonearm Internal Wiring, as the over the past year the whole of the system has progressively had New Wire Design Cables added, and is now set up with the same wire types being used at all other interfaces between devices, and PC's are the ongoing Cables being exchanged to the New Wire Types.

How would you describe, from a specific sonics standpoint, what your goal is? What about the sound that you are getting now are you not satisfied with and hope to improve?

Thanks.

Raul,

Starting around year 2000, I began to put many hours into cable evaluations.  I have great respect for the Stealth cable products.  In the mid-late 2000's, I owned two Stealth Indra ICs and many of their Dream power cords.   That was about the time when my system began to take on a significant gain in refinements.  But in time, I discovered other products that I preferred for one reason or another.  Back to your favorite topic ... trading off one set of distortions for another?  😊  I did not try other Stealth products such as the Sakra IC as its price was outside of my "budget".  But I was intrigued by the Stealth Dream speaker cables.

My cable evaluation results repeatedly came back with the most sensitive link as the IC from line stage to amp.  The second most sensitive link was the tonearm cable.  This is why the tonearm cable discussions here have my attention.  I would have to say that power cords took on third priority.  Swapping in a few highly-reviewed speaker cables resulted in minimal difference vs. other links.  Funds were much better spent elsewhere and thus my speaker cables were constant for many years.  I have since experienced how significant a speaker cable "update" can be, but I needed to do a lot of work first to get there.  Perhaps with my system as it is now, evaluating newer cable models at various links would more clearly show which link might benefit from some new attention.  But for now, things are pretty good here.

Early on, I swapped my "reference" IC with the one under evaluation from from phono-to-line and line-to-amp.  At the start of these early evaluations, I had cheap Belden and Canare IC's.  No matter what cables I had in the system, putting the Belden or Canare in the line to amp link instantly destroyed the magic I had worked so hard to achieve; the result was horrible!  It was not a tonality change but rather a destruction of the decays and harmonic overtones.  If I was a solid state preamp owner, I suspect such differences would not have been as significant .

There were many times when the evaluated cable was neck and neck or even preferred over my current reference IC, at the line to amp link.  When I then replaced the Canare at the phono to line with either of the other two IC's, this change indeed brought on refinements.  The differences here were not to the same degree as the line to amp link.  Any such benefits were irrelevant if the Canare was used into the amp.   So much for the nonsense claim that the "best" cable must always be put at the top of the chain. I had similar results later on with several highly touted ICs from line to amp that destroyed my system's magic.

Moving onto the tonearm cable, differences here were more in line with the benefits of a refined cable to the amp.  And it was the Stealth Hyperphono here that stole the show vs. the three other tonearm cables I owned at that time.  I was unprepared for this difference.  I would like to try a "modern" tonearm cable but the ones I am interested in are insanely expensive.  And others are from cable manufacturers that I could not wait to get out of my system.

Hopefully either in this thread or another, the findings of a "run away discovery" tonearm cable implementation by any of the contributors here will be shared.

John