What is the “World’s Best Cartridge”?

@mikelavigne 

Hi Mike I followed your thread on the phono cable sea on WBF.

Whilst I do not doubt what you have heard in your system ( and I assume no-one here has heard your system, so comments are speculative ), and I have huge respect for your commitment to analogue, I have concerns re the LFD phono cable.

Firstly I am a little jaundiced by the brand since a friend was loaned a pair of LFD Reference mono blocks and quite frankly they were awful. So bad we pulled a pair of unmodified Leak TL12plus monos out of the cupboard and confirmed our fears the LFD had less resolution and information than the old Leaks ( driving some Von Schweikerts ).

I have also heard the LFD phono at length - again underwhelming, not as bad as the mono's but midfi at best.

With regards to the LFD phono cables I note from the WBF thread that the development for the more expensive model from the lower one basically involves playing around with physical construction and attributes and listening. There is no science discussed.

The warning signs that this cable is simply a tone control, is twofold -

1. Adding bundles and combos of wire a la Yamamura is trial and error.

2. More importantly you must ask the question based on the following observation

A moving coil cartridge is an inherently symmetrical device ( coil and 2 tails ).

A MC step up transformer provides an inherently symmetrical input ( coil and 2 tails).

Therefore why would you use an asymmetrical cable where the +ve and -ve sides are different in this application. It makes no sense.

Have you ever tried balancing a wheelbarrow with one side heavier than the other ?

Unfortunately, there are a lot of awful cables out there regardless of price. ( I use to distribute several high end cable brands back in the mid 80's and have tried multitudes including many different constructs and many prototypes from various manufacturers ). Most high end cables are a set of compromises chosen by the designer - hence the endless debates. When one of my pals tries a new megabuck cable out, I usually grab a pair of my old cables from the 80's, take them over, do a blind test, and hey presto the $8k cables usually go back.

In my own system I use 2 phono cables depending on the cartridge - both twisted pair plus shield from 2 different manufacturers.

I have one that is highly capacitive that I use for all MC's ( the best phono cable I have tried ).

I have a different phono cable that has very low capacitance that I use specifically for moving iron and moving magnet cartridges. ( With moving magnet cartridges the electrical parameters of the phono cables and phono input form an electrical circuit that determines the cartridges high frequency linearity and phase response, unlike MC's ).

Similarly with SUT to phono - my reference phono cable is too capacitive and I have a specific lower capacitive cable for this application - in this case it is not twisted pair but a speciffically woven symmetrical litz wire loom that is closest to my reference without the negative impact of capacitance in this application.

Interestingly on WBF there was a thread on what cables do CH Precision owners use. I find it interesting that half a dozen owners use half a dozen different interconnects between the same pre/power. You cant explain this by the system whole, because the pre/power are all the same - ergo, these guys are buying tone controls, not reference cables. 

Hope this has given you something to ponder - if I were you I would grab a few pairs of well designed basic cables ( symmetrical construction not asymmetrical or coaxial ) and go back and compare to your LFD - it might be illuminating, and educational - one way or the other.

 

 

 

 

 

 

@dover

over the years i’ve had multiple phono cables through my system; currently i have three other ’basic’ phono din<->rca’s i have swapped in and out. over the 3 years i’ve tried various versions of the LFD including the Dongle/Raptor recently. the LFD’s have been significant steps up over my other choices per my comments in that thread you read. as well as big steps up over my basic choices. when i did my listening my local friend ’jazdoc’ helped me to listen and judge. he had also been involved in previous phono cable swaps in my system with Durand phono cables and Found Music phono cables of various build choices. so this is something i have done my fair share of.

as i wrote, you have to view LFD cables as components. they take you further. you likely also read other comments from LFD cable users in that thread. my viewpoint is not singular.

so your perspective does not reflect my experience. i do respect that you have an opinion.

LFD electronics are not relevant to the high end hand built LFD cables. if you find info on LFD electronics you will find that they are very modestly priced.......never heard them myself and have no opinion about them. i respect overall skepticism about any high end cables........and know it’s always going to be presumption of guilt. zero benefit of the doubt.

before i separated myself from my money i did my listening tests. not trying to sell LFD cables......they are over a year back ordered and impossible to get.

it's easy to take shots........much harder to acquire and listen and then report. which is all i’m doing. if you ever hear top level LFD phono cables do please tell us about it.

@mikelavigne 

..but most of the best phono preamps are not true balanced designs, which is another issue.

This is the key issue.  As ralph points out just using an XLR means nothing and in order to take advantage of a balanced interface one must adhere to AES48.  Just because a XLR connector has the ability to be wired to that standard does not mean that everything that it is plugged into also adheres to that standard.  If one aspect of the standard is not met, the whole concept collapses.

@dover 

A moving coil cartridge is an inherently symmetrical device ( coil and 2 tails ).

A MC step up transformer provides an inherently symmetrical input ( coil and 2 tails).

Therefore why would you use an asymmetrical cable where the +ve and -ve sides are different in this application. It makes no sense.

This is an instance where the necessary aspects of the AES48 can exist at the source and the load but in order to operate 'properly' the interface cabling must also be done to the standard (twisted pair with a shield) and I have only experienced a few cases where using this interface worked the same or better than the 'conventional' method.   In all of the cases that worked, the tonearm was specifically (re)wired for this purpose.   With a SUT the RCA cable interface is fine for running the AES standard since the shield can simply be joined externally to the tonearm/table and SUT grounds making sure the primary of the SUT has no ground reference.  In fact at no point in the AES48 is an XLR connector called out, it just happens to be the industry accepted connector.  

 

dave

 

 

OTOH with short phono cables it’s all execution. whatever sounds best. possibly all things being equal balanced might be superior technically......but......of course.....all things are pretty much never equal. you have to listen to pick the winner. the LFD execution is crazy stuff. if LFD used XLR i suppose it might be even better..

You get the same benefit with short cables as you do long cables. The idea that balanced really only benefits you when the cables are long is a common myth. The advantages are several as I showed above, and these become more important when the signal strength is lower. Of course the LFD cable would work better balanced, as well as any balanced cable if built correctly.

@intactaudio is correct in his post just above. It really sounds to me as if all the balanced gear you've heard doesn't support the balanced standard; if that is the case then the results will be highly variable.

If you really want to do single-ended connections a 50Ohm coax is really the only way to do it properly without cable interactions, but to do so you need appropriate driver and receiver circuitry.

The funny thing is other than the balanced input on the phono preamp, running a proper balanced connection from the cartridge is actually easier than running single-ended. The arm wiring doesn't change; its all about the tonearm cable being built properly. You know that weird ground wire that other single-ended sources don't seem to need? That' s because its a balanced system being run single-ended and you have to do something with the ground, which isn't connected to the cartridge- that's the ground wire. When running balanced that is the shield connection (pin 1 of the XLR), which is a continuation of the shielding the arm tube provides, and its not able to intermodulate noise into the signal since ground is ignored by the receiver (in this case the phono input, which could be an SUT with a balanced connection).

So when running balanced the only tricky bit is that just like any phono cable, its best to keep the cable capacitance low so as to keep the electrical resonance as high as possible. With LOMC cartridges, this resonance is typically in the MHz region.

The hardest part about all this is something called the Veblen Effect. Literally people think that because they are paying more that there is more value. This isn't always the case! Veblen causes people to want to spend more on a cable, thinking that they will get greater performance/SQ. Its important to know that can sometimes be illusory.

Dear @mikelavigne : Some way or the other @dover is telling you almost the same as me and you still hide behind that " I like it " in exactly the same way the manufacturer/distributor Mick did it. Again, the main issue is not what you or any one else " like it " but what is wrong or rigth ! ! ! !

I already told that Mick says " the proof is in the listening " as an answer to a direct questions to him looking for specs/science but things are as I posted that they not know nothing about and as you they trust in a very well regarded but heavy limited " tool " named EARS that foolished not only you with the Dava terrible FR spec but to all wbf gentlemans excatly as with the LFD.

But you just don’t get or do not understand the main issue because you just posted @mijostyn " you need to hear it with the DaVa sometime.......freaking awesome ", go figure ? ?

Btw, Mick posted there that a change of cables inside the electronics makes a wide change for the better using LFD cables with out think that the best cable inside electronics is NO cable at all. These LFD people are not crazy and they know exactly how to take money from the in good faith audio customers and they do it with huge success because always are gentlemans like the ones in wbf.

 

Dover posted exactly what I posted at least 3 times to you that’s not the issue under discussion:

 

" I do not doubt what you have heard in your system " and he continued confirmed what other posted here:

 

" There is no science discussed. "

 

and he is rigth when he said that almost all of you in that wbf use the IC cables as TONE CONTROLS. It’s less expensive and way better to have a good designed equalizer and exist several to buy.

Please, I posted you that/your beloved cartridge 6db FR deviation function as an equalizer because any single discrete frequency deviation affects almost two octave including harmonics and these are facts.

 

Not the manufacturers of those audio items and certainly no one of their owners have any single fact/spec that can explain that what all of you is rigth, no one has any single evidence about and again the ! ears " of all of you just foolished all.

 

You have very good relationship with Mick and bonzo75, invite both to have a friendly dialogue here . Maybe there is something we are loosing down there.

 

Please think on these: you are really dedicated and with high commitment with all your room/system choices and very special with analog where your DD and ID TTs are top quality performers, both mounted in vibrations-free plattforms, controled electrical sources, with two top tonearms and along those and several other characteristics you own the Dartzeel phonolinepreamp and I wonder for what that huge commitment for your self with the signal cartridge if just at the output of the tonearm that cartridge signal be destroyed/demolished and in this thread are the evidences of that destruction.

 

R.