$800 Cartridge Shootout and Upgrade Path

Dan_ed,

It’s always a good idea to be nice to your wife. Luda asked what I wanted for my birthday, which is fast approaching. I said, “How’s about a contribution to my turntable savings account?” She said, Will five or six hundred do?" “Why certainly!” I replied. I am getting closer guys. : > )

My favorite music for vinyl is classical. That type of music was what I bought first in any abundance, and it is what I am buying now despite the fact I don’t have a turntable. It’s a risk buy so to speak, but I feel that I have to get back into the vinyl game in some way. Shoot, by the time I actually get my turntable, I will have about a hundred albums. Now I know that’s a puny record collection to many, but it’s like diamonds to me!

I will have to say that even with rock, vinyl reigns supreme over CDs. Even though I listen to classic music, what got me going toward vinyl was hearing “Gloria” by the late Laura Branigan. The music was so sublime, the beat was so hot, and her voice was so real and in the room with me I literally jumped out of my chair and commenced to flail myself about has if I had become possessed by the Almighty. Wow! Rock was meant to be heard from a vinyl record on a great analog front end. The music I experienced that moment was better than any live concert of amplified music I have ever heard!

ARtar, it sounds like you are really having fun with all this, and I hope you continue to enjoy this process. With the various selections you are choosing from, you are bound to get very good sound.

Just enjoy yourself and get the things that make you happy.

We are just trying to provide some insight that will help you to make your decisions about some of the details.

Regarding your questions about motor controllers, there are some things about DC motors that need to be known. First, they can be the smoothest way to rotate the platter. But, they have no "speed lock" like AC synchronous motors do, and the speed can slow down over the course of playing a record, unless something is done to keep it at speed. This is due to "stylus drag" and it can add up to a significant loss of speed over the 20-30 minutes of an LP side. There have been a variety of methods employed to keep the DC motors at correct speed, and they all have their plusses and minuses. The bottom line is that the heavier the platter is, with more rotational momentum, the less likely that stylus drag will significantly affect the speed. With the heavier platters, even a TT which uses speed controls will not have to engage in compensating pulses to the motor very often, if the platter stays at correct speed in the first place. I have a Teres(as you know) and it even has the lightest platter in the Teres lineup. The motor housing has some LED's on it to show when the speed has changed significantly enough to apply a correction. In fact, the red(correction)LED light never comes on during play. It only comes on when the platter is first starting up, and seeking 33.3rpm. Then the green light comes on and stays there throughout the LP side. So I really don't even see any corrections taking place, because the heavy platter keep it rotationally stable. However, I do know that if something severe happened to the platter speed, that the controller would account for the change immediately. Also, the Teres uses a strobe on the platter to continuously monitor the speed. This is quite different than monitoring motor speed, because if there is belt-slippage, the motor will "see" correct speed, but the platter could be off-speed. We always want to know the platter speed is correct.

Artar 1 to Twl:

Nice point! You should be an audio dealer!

ROFL!!! Artar, do you really think this quality of advice comes from an amateur? Or did you forget the ;-)?

On the TT/arm/cartridge hierarchy thing, I was fiddling with cartridges this weekend and thought I'd try the opposite extreme from the cheap TT/expensive cartridge mismatch, just for haha's. While switching from one fancy MC to another I slipped my old ADC XLM MkII in the system.

Now this was about as ridiculous as the Koetsu Tiger Eye/Denon setup. $3900 TT, $3900 tonearm, 25-year-old MM cartridge that was about $140 back in the day. (It does have a fairly low-hours stylus, though it hasn't been used in about 18 months.)

I gave the old XLM quite a scare. First, she got mounted on this high-falutin rig. Then I brought out the alignment protractor. She had never seen one of those before, and she didn't like it one bit! Crookedest cantilever I've ever seen but there was enough play in the slots to line things up, more or less.

I pulled out some backup copies of one or two LPs and -OOPS! Don't forget to bypass the stepups. Can you say overload?

So how did this nonsensical mismatch sound. Damned impressive! Having lived with three top quality MC's the weaknesses were obvious of course, no highs, not much bass, kinda slow and sludgy. But it was also dynamic, musical and very listenable. If I had never heard the MC's I might go some time with the XLM before noticing what was missing.

Without coaching him I asked Paul which idiotic mismatch he'd rather live with, this cheap cartridge/expensive rig or the Shelter 901/cheap rig we listened to for a couple of weeks before our Teres showed up. With no hesitation he pointed at the good rig/cheap cartridge combo. "This makes music," he said, "the Shelter just showed up the flaws of the inadequate TT and arm."

It was silly, but it was fun to demonstrate the truth of the hierarchy Twl recommends. Balance is best of course, but if you must mismatch for a time, get the best rig you can afford and skimp (to a point) on the cartridge.

DougDeacon, exactly why I'm keeping the Benz Glider for now! :) What I can't hear won't disappoint me!

Dan_ed,
So you want to buy a lightly used ADC XLM MkII? You'll be even less disappointed, I guarantee it! ;-)