About phonograph pick-up cartridges?

[Swerd]

I hesitate to post this, because it’s about phonograph pick-up cartridges and phono stage preamps. And because I really prefer digitally recorded music over archaic analog recordings.

When I was first getting into audio in the 1960s, I remember being told that the weakest links in sound reproduction were the points where acoustic sound waves were transduced to electronic signals, and again, where electronic signals became acoustic sound waves. Those points were the phonograph pick-up cartridge and the loudspeaker. And it was those two points where the largest differences in sound quality could be found.

This idea made sense to me then, and it still does now. And I knew many people, including myself, who spent a lot of time listening to different speakers as they chose what they would buy. It was easy to hear how different speakers did sound different.

Although nearly everyone listened to vinyl albums, very few people ever tried to compare the sound qualities of different cartridges. Switching speakers was relatively easy, but switching cartridges was difficult. Also, nearly all phonographs sold were bundled with a cartridge at an attractive price. If I remember correctly, in 1973, when I bought my first and only turntable for $78, it came with a Shure M91 cartridge for an additional $20. As a result, no one I knew ever listened to different cartridges to compare their sound. People always seemed to end up with whatever the dealer bundled with the phonograph. There were many different makes and models of cartridges, Shure, Pickering, Empire, Grado, etc. but no one I knew actually bothered with comparing them, despite the common wisdom about energy transduction points being the weakest links.

I guess the same might be said for phono stage preamps. I never knew anyone who used anything other than what was built into their stereo receiver. Many years went by, before I ever saw a separate phono stage preamp.

After CDs were introduced, the pick-up cartridge and phonograph began to disappear; I stopped thinking about them, as one of the weak links of sound reproduction stopped being an issue. In contrast, I've never noticed that DACs could come close to making as large a difference as speakers could.

Today, as some people are attracted to old technology, I often see people asking “what cartridge should I buy”. There is a bewildering variety of pick-up cartridges available. For that matter, there is an equally bewildering variety of phono stage preamps.

I have, over the years, owned two different pick-up cartridges. One was the original Shure M91, and the other is a Sumiko Oyster I bought in the 1990s because my curious but ham-fisted teenage son destroyed the Shure. Similarly, over the years, I’ve listened through three different phono stage preamps. The first was in a Marantz stereo receiver I bought in 1973, the second was in a Denon AVR I bought in 2000, and the third is a standalone Audio Technica phono stage preamp I bought for about $60 in 2008 when I replaced the Denon with a B&K AVR that lacked a phono stage. It’s hard for me to answer questions about their possible different sounds. I wonder how many people actually have systematically compared sounds from different cartridges, or phono stage preamps.

This is one of those silly things I wonder about. I have no intention of buying a cartridge or a phono stage preamp. (If you recommend something to buy, I’ll know you haven’t actually read my post .)

Does anyone else wonder, or care, about this?

 

[markw]

I've never done any controlled testing of phono cartridges but have flipped more than a few, maybe six or so, over my earlier years in an attempt to upgrade, or change at least, the overall sound of my system. It wasn't quite as drastic as switching speakers but I did notice differences when I changed them. No, I didn't put the old one back in but at one point, I did have a spare head shell for my Miracord 50H and, with a few minutes to rebalance the arm, could do a fairly quick comparison between the two latest/greatest candidates. This I what I remember:

My first cartridge in a Garrard AT-60 from Lafayette camw with a Pickering. It was great. It was also my first.

It was replaced with an Empire a year or so later. I immediately noticed it was a but less bright and I got used to it but it lacked a bit of sparkle.

About a year later, I went with s Shure. That was pretty much a perfect balance between the two and I stuck with them for years.

When I got out of the service a few years later I picked up a Miracord 50H with a Shure. As time went on, I read about a new ADC XLM cartridge which was supposed to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. It was a very light tracking unit and sounded great but I learned that the massive arm on my TT didn't do it justice and it would skip with the slightest imperfection, no matter how carefully I adjusted it. That was my introduction to "compliance" vs. arm mass.

Back to Shures for me from then on.

As for phono preamps, I've never compared them but all the receivers I've had (Lafayette, Fisher, Pioneer, several Marantz' have never given me cause to complain but, given the circuit complexities and the combinations of cartridge characteristics (capacatance and impedance, although 47 -50k seems to be a standard for MM) there might be some golden ears that can discern them.

Personally, I'm pretty sure that when people talk about the difference between CD and vinyl lies more with the euphonics of the cartridge and the mastering/recording as opposed to any quantifiable differences.

But, YMMV

 

[Swerd]

Thanks mark. Interesting to hear your experience. It seems more people recommended Shure than any other. I never had any complaint about mine, but it was my first.

 

[3db]

I owned a Shure cartridge that came along with my near bottom of the line Radio Shack turntable table as I was a student and that is all that I could afford at the time. It had a nice sound I think but the rest of the system was of the came caliber so I couldn't really tell. I then noticed (in my early 40s) that most of my albums started to sound really bad at the last songs of the table so I stopped playing vinyl until I could get a decent table.

Fastforward 8 years and enter ProJect XPression2 with a Ortofon OM5E. My records were sounding good again in the last two songs of each side and the music sounded good. This table was so quiet compared to the rumble of the Rat Shack table. However the cartride revealed all the noise of the album. I upgraded to the 2MRED also by Ortofon. What I noticed between the two was that the new cartridge was not as sensitive to record damage as the OM5E, had better channel separation and sound slightl better than the OM5E.

I then lost that table to a basement flood and got a replacement ProJect XPressionIII with a stock 2MRED. Its even quieter than the XpressionII it replaced which brings out the music even that much more.

That's been my experience.

 

[Swerd]

Thanks 3db. I've often heard the name Ortofon mentioned, but I don't believe I ever listened to a turntable that had one. I was once told that Ortofon was among the first to develop modern hifi pick-ups in the 1960s. Perhaps they didn't have a good distribution network in the US back when I was buying, or maybe they had more products at higher prices than entry level.

 

[markw]

For what it's worth, I'm having another Miracord 50H rebuilt and will be putting a Grado in it. I bought that Grado for use in my Rega turntable but, due to a lack of shielding, it's a bit too sensitive to the motor hum so I went back to the Goldring it came with.

I still have a Shure in the Philips 887 in the man cave though.

 

[3db]

Like speakers, cartridges are probably as much as subjective choice as speakers. BTW, I won't change out my cartridge myself as I don't have the alignment tools to get the job done right and alignment is EVERYTHING when it comes to proper tracking.

 

[TLS Guy]

Turntables and especially the cartridge/tonearm combination are very much like speakers. I will be honest I really dislike what I hear in dealers demo rooms these days.

I suspect I have the longest experience of anyone here playing vinyl and I suspect also shellack.

I have been extremely interested in disc reproduction since I was a very small child.

I had my first acoustical machine age 4. It was made in India and my father brought it back with him after WW2.

At about that time my father got interested in LP reproduction. So we are talking 1951 here. He fixed up a turntable adapter the was placed on a 78 RPM turntable, in this case a Columbia. It was electronic and had a moving iron puck up with changeable steel needles or fiber ones you sharpened. He added an Acos Black Shadow unipivot arm with interchangeable 78 and LP crystal cartridges. They slid on and off the end of the arm on a vertical slide.

I can find no pictures of one of these epicyclic geared adapters, but they did exist. There are debates on the vintage forums as to whether they existed. They did exist!

The next upgrade was this turntable.

This was the PU and cartridge.

Both these were designed and produced by A.E. Sugden. The heads were changeable between 78 and LP. We are talking 1952 here. At this time this was the reference turntable used by the BBC for 78 and LP on air playing.

The cartridge was moving iron, variable reluctance. The tracking force was 7 to 10 Grams!

Now Cecile E. Watts a pioneer researcher showed that it would take a tracking force of 3 GM or less to prevent permanent groove deformation after a single play.

At this time I had started to DIY. I made moving coil cartridges with a naked diamond suspended on a nylon thread. I achieved stable tracking at 3 GM! I have LPs played with those that still have excellent fidelity.

At the dawn of the stereo era in 1959 there were really two firms that produced good cartridges: - Decca and Ortofon. These were head and shoulders above the competition. At the same time transcription turntables of excellent quality became available from Garrard and Thorens. In this era European technology far outstripped the US. The US was very much smitten with magnetic tape at that time.

The Decca was without cantilever with a naked diamond suspended on a nylon line, and was variable reluctance.

At that time all of the Ortofon range was moving coil.

This is what the Garrard/Decca looked like then. This is my original converted to 78 RPM.

Now with the Decca pro arm and Decca cartridge from 1971.

At this time SME started making arms of superior performance. Here is a Garrard, SME series 2 Shure combo.

Now there is a difference in the sound of arm/cartridges. In those early days, I preferred the Decca line and my father was an Ortofon enthusiast.

Here is his moving coil Ortofon from the sixties.

The fidelity of these turntables is excellent and far above current mid
priced turntables of today.

I have had a chance to go head to head with a Decca, Shure and Ortofon 2M Red. It is no contest, both are far superior to the budget Ortofon.

The Decca is very smooth and detailed. The weakness is tracking highly modulated grooves. In this area Shure cartridges are unsurpassed. The Shure V15 xmr is my all time favorite all round performer, especially on an SME series III. This arm and cartridge are a perfect combo with the arm/cartridge resonance matching perfectly. With a good quiet disc repro is on a par with good digital media.

As 3 db has pointed out careful set up is crucial. Unlike 3 db I would never trust another with the task.

The important factors are a smooth frequency response at the top and lower ends of the spectrum especially.

Trackability. In this area I feel Shure are unsurpassed.

Transient performance. This I feel has always been the strength of the Decca line.

Other cartridges I have available, is Decca Jubilee.

I also Have a Goldring moving coil, but do not really care for it.

I really find, exotic turntables in dealers show rooms rather over wrought on the whole. Disc imperfections really snap at me, which is a bad sign.

I have quite a large collection of vinyl. I have not added to it in quite a few years now. Used LPs have been a bad disappointment to me. I did add a number of discs form the estate of an UK audio enthusiast a little over 10 years ago, and all of these discs were pristine. His playing equipment was very similar to mine.

If you care for your records, choose good equipment, and set it up right fidelity is excellent and use is easy. I don't think it is comparable to CD in ease of use, except for having to make a side change. Both formats require care of the discs.

If you like vinyl, the a good arm cartridge combo on a good turntable really pays dividends. It really is amazing how good LP reproduction can be.

 

[slipperybidness]

Dang, TLS, that is impressive!!!

The fact that you still have the original gear that you purchased that long ago! As in decades before I was born.

 

[KEW]

The $85 Shure V-15 Type III was the cartridge I wanted, but the $60 M91ED was what I could afford.
I agree with you that any place there is an electrical to mechanical conversion things get complicated. However, I think the science of cartridges avoids many complexities of speakers.
Looking at my 1977 High Fidelity Test Reports, their performance was pretty good. Looking at the ubiquitous Shure M91ED:
FR Left Channel: +1,-2dB 20Hz to 19.5kHz (takes a nose dive at 19.5)
FR Right Channel: +0.75, -2dB 20Hz to 20kHz
Channel Separation L: >23.5dB, 20Hz to 14.5kHz
Channel Separation R: >21.5dB, 20Hz to 16kHz
IM distortion 1% lateral, 3.3% verticle (comment "approach the best measured to date")

High Fidelity always pissed me off because they would pick and choose which data to present. Harmonic distortion is not listed for M91 (V-15 was at <3% up to 3kHz and up to 5% at 10kHz, which they considered on par for better cartridges).

They also show square-wave response at 1kHz (but not for the M91).

Flipping through, the square-wave responses vary from rounded to impressively square.
Frequency response was flat through the midrange and varied in the extremities among different companies. By the way many gradually curve up in the treble and a few in the bass, I wonder if this was not deliberately "tuned-in" to give a sound that called attention to the cartridge.

Going back to the original premise about transducers, if looking at an amplifier, these results would be pathetic! However, if looking at speakers they are impressive.

Most of the audio shops I remember only had a handful of cartridge brands stocked while they had a dozen or more speaker manufactures in-house.

Interesting side note - The V-15 came with a certificate which could be exchanged for a free test record ("Audio Obstacle Course-Era III") that allows you to compare cartridges in terms of trackability. That falls in line with TLSGuy's statement about Shure tracking so well.

Does someone currently make a test record like that?

 

[TLS Guy]

No, but I still have my Audio Obstacle Course Era III.

Here is the frequency response of a Shure V15 xmr, with the genuine Shure stylus, sadly NLA.

There is a slight HF roll off above 2 KHz, but it is only down 1.5 db at 15 K.

Most LPS are a little hot on the top end, so this is a good fault. Bass response is excellent.

Moving coil cartridges are prone to a slight HF rise, a lot more than slight. I find this objectionable.

The Shure xmr optimizes the greatest number of discs.

Here is a Decca jubilee response curve.

On the right program and a good recording these Decca cartridges are superb.