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Cartridge frequency response.

mhainz

mhainz

Well-Known Member
Question for you knowledgable people out there.

What determines a cartridge's frequency response? Is it the actual way the cart is built or is it the stylus, cantilever that affects it?

I've noticed when browsing the specs of (AT carts in particular) there'll be 2 or 3 carts which appear almost identical but one might have a freq. res. of say 15-27 while the next will have 20-20. Take for example the AT-101-EP and the AT301-EP. Both have a 0.4x0.7 stylus tip but vastly different frequency responses and even channel balance.

Just curious...
 
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It's mostly the internal coils of the cart body, but interaction between that and the stylus assembly plays a part. Identical bodies can have different specs depending on the stylus fitted.

Happy trails,
Larry B.
 
mhainz said:
Question for you knowledgable people out there.

What determines a cartridge's frequency response? Is it the actual way the cart is built or is it the stylus, cantilever that affects it?

I've noticed when browsing the specs of (AT carts in particular) there'll be 2 or 3 carts which appear almost identical but one might have a freq. res. of say 15-27 while the next will have 20-20. Take for example the AT-101-EP and the AT301-EP. Both have a 0.4x0.7 stylus tip but vastly different frequency responses and even channel balance.

Just curious...
Click to expand...


Forget specs. The only way to see frequency response is to install cartridge on tonearm, play vinyl with test tones and do measurements. Unless you see results of independent measurements, you cannot make any conclusion about frequency response of specific cartridge in your table and with your phono preamp.
 
mh: Both - and then in practice also the actual content on the particular record in the current condition and the load parameters.

But as f_p1 already hinted to, published manufacturer specs are very often problematic, due to the paticular style very often not being well defined enough. I.e. one manufacturer's "20 Hz to 20 kHz" might be pretty honest and for example go for a deviation limit of +/- 1.5 dB, while another may claim "10 Hz to 35 kHz" without any limits for deviation. In case of some manufacturers like for example Audio Technica you might even notice that they've changed their spec style over the years. So comparability usually is extremely limited.

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini
 
As lini suggests, the short but quite accurate answer is "everything". Stylus tip geometry, cantilever, suspension, coils and cores, electrical loading, and also including record playback radius and speed, record material formulation, vertical tracking force used, playback temperature, and (of course) which test record is used and its playback history. It gets astonishingly complex -- all of which suggests that published specs cannot be 100% relied upon for product comparisons.
 
I doubt any new carts will have any problems providing the user with more than useful frequency range. Not like in the early days where one would see ranges roll off quite early.
 
Some "CD-4" carts could get out past 44K. It has to do with the type of tip. a standard 'elliptical' could get to 28 without much problem. The 4 channel carts were good to at least 50K!!!
Has anybody checked (perhaps, back in the day) to what the MicroAcoustics 2002e could do? I'm still kicking my butt for selling mine to a friend back in 1986. While is didn't have much depth on my system, but it had great tracking ability.
 
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