Cartridge or turntable?

[loudnoises]

Really. I'd like to hear your reasoning.

I've always presumed that if the deck spins at the proper speed consistently, it's doing about all you can expect from it.

That's why I'm on the cartridge side.

It's really quite a bit more than that involved in a good drive mechanism. Lots of give and take.

However it is just a spinning platter, and with performance being equal there's no real difference between the various options when it comes to what the stylus sees. It can't tell if it's a belt, magnet assembly, or even a steam turbine making the platter spin, and neither could your ears.

My vote is for the arm. I think the capability of most cartridges we commonly use are beyond that of most arms. Even a 40 year old Stanton takes a lot of arm to really shine. A good arm with a mediocre cartridge will sound better than the reverse. Ymmv.

 

[Mangler]

I will mention what has not been mentioned yet. Quality of the media. You can buy the best cart with a $500 Jico and it will not lie as to what's in the groove. I would base my purchases around what I listen to and how I plan on collecting, cleaning and listening to my collection. I don't have TOL cart or stylus because that would mean I would hear every imperfection there is on my albums which I have collected from various places.

 

[curtisw99]

Leaving the debate over what component is the most important for a moment, when you look at turntables and cartridges (I'm purposefully omitting tone arms here as I don't see myself as being able to afford a turntable that needs a separate tone arm), which do you think has the greatest impact on the quality of the signal that the receiver or pre-amp receives from the turntable? The cartridge or the turntable?

At the risk of answering my own question, I'm inclined to believe that it's the cartridge that has the greatest impact (as the cart converts the mechanical energy of the stylus wiggling in the groove to an electrical signal). The turntable's impact on the quality of the sound, I'm presuming, is more along the lines of maintaining a constant speed, eliminating rumble, and isolating the noise-making bits of the turntable from ambient noises and vibrations (foot steps, doors slamming, bass drums beating through your speakers, etc...).

How would you split the balance of the impact of the sound each component plays? Is it 50/50 cart/turntable, or is it 80/20 cart/turntable?

My focus here is entry level to low-mid level turntables (as indicated above, turntables that come complete with their own tone arms).

Thanks.

I’m on Team Turntable
I have lots of new and vintage carts, and lots of turntables. Cartridges all sound good on my Duals and the Thorens and a PL-15D I fixed up for my son. On the tables with heavier arms, like Hitachi and Technics, and a PL-530 I did some work on, they just don’t sound as lively.

 

[cwall99]

It's really quite a bit more than that involved in a good drive mechanism. Lots of give and take.

However it is just a spinning platter, and with performance being equal there's no real difference between the various options when it comes to what the stylus sees. It can't tell if it's a belt, magnet assembly, or even a steam turbine making the platter spin, and neither could your ears.

My vote is for the arm. I think the capability of most cartridges we commonly use are beyond that of most arms. Even a 40 year old Stanton takes a lot of arm to really shine. A good arm with a mediocre cartridge will sound better than the reverse. Ymmv.

Nice reply. As a rhetorical point, examine the effect "Ymmv" has on your argument. The sentence that comes before is a universal statement in favor of the tone arm.

But then you say, "Or not," and that, again, undermines what you just said.

Let me apologize as I'm a word need who enjoys parsing sentences ... and you know what they're like!!!

 

[maxhifi]

I like these open ended threads. Here's my 2 cents

The cartridge has a job - retrieve info from the groove, as accurately as possible. The turntable/arm have a job - Don't let the info picked up by the cartridge get corrupted.

So then, we could say there's no point to picking up all the info in the groove if we let it get corrupted, but at the same time, more info picked up equals to higher resolution sound.

The natural conclusion, is you must have a good turntable, and a good cartridge, for best results.

The idea that excellent sound is possible from either an extremely good cartridge on a mediocre turntable, or else a cheap cartridge on an excellent one, is flawed, because either way, you're losing something versus both being good.

 

[cwall99]

I like these open ended threads. Here's my 2 cents

The cartridge has a job - retrieve info from the groove, as accurately as possible. The turntable/arm have a job - Don't let the info picked up by the cartridge get corrupted.

So then, we could say there's no point to picking up all the info in the groove if we let it get corrupted, but at the same time, more info picked up equals to higher resolution sound.

The natural conclusion, is you must have a good turntable, and a good cartridge, for best results.

The idea that excellent sound is possible from either an extremely good cartridge on a mediocre turntable, or else a cheap cartridge on an excellent one, is flawed, because either way, you're losing something versus both being good.

Here's another way to look at the question.

If I have a humble system, but I think it sounds awesome, then I'm cool.

Sadly, we don't to keep that naivete very long.

But I still think the transducers, devices that convert one form of energy to another like cartridges and speakers, will have the greatest impact on what we hear.

Still waiting to be convinced ...

 

[Mr Boochie]

But I still think the transducers, devices that convert one form of energy to another like cartridges and speakers, will have the greatest impact on what we hear.

A physics friend in school would agree with you 100%. I went with his idea, and it seems to have worked out.

He also helped me build some subwoofers. Those worked out fine, too.

 

[maxhifi]

But I still think the transducers, devices that convert one form of energy to another like cartridges and speakers, will have the greatest impact on what we hear.

Still waiting to be convinced ...

I disagree with you about this. In my experience doing repairs to high end audio amplifiers, I always test them with inexpensive speakers for a while before sending them out the door. And it is very audible which amplifier is good. I've heard some very lopsided combinations with a $10,000 amplifier driving a pair of 40 year old two way economy speakers, and found it to sound excellent.

I have noticed empirically that I always enjoy cheap speakers paired with an expensive amplifier, more than expensive speakers paired with a cheap amplifier. In fact, expensive, high resolution speakers can really draw attention to the weakness of an amplifier, whereas a good amplifier will make the best of cheap speakers.

 

[doctor fuse]

If I had to choose between an excellent turntable/tonearm with a basic but decent cartridge or an excellent cartridge with a basic but decent turntable/tonearm, I would choose the excellent turntable/tonearm.

 

[charles 1973]

If I had to choose between an excellent turntable/tonearm with a basic but decent cartridge or an excellent cartridge with a basic but decent turntable/tonearm, I would choose the excellent turntable/tonearm.

That was my way of thinking when I bought my Rega Planar 2 in 2023. It's stock Carbon cartridge barely qualifies as decent IMO, But my plan was to upgrade the cartridge soon after purchase. I was considering the Goldring E3 but never got around to it. Finally 2 weeks ago I looked at some options now and discovered Rega now makes a very competent line of cartridges, Their ND line of 4 models. So I had their Nd3 mounted on my Planar 2. I wasn't impressed with their previous offerings. I also bought their Fono Mrk 5 MM Phono Pre-amp.

The improvement in overall sound quality is shocking at 25 hours. Which might not be too surprising considering the stock Carbon cartridge on the planar 2 was no match to the Nagaoka MP11 cartridge on a very old, entry level Pioneer PL155A Turntable that won't even shut off. The Planar 2 finally sounds like a CAD $1,000 table should.

Their is an Elliptical stylus available for the Carbon cartridge that might elevate the tables performance to at least decent for a fraction of the cost of the Nd3 cartridge.

It's much easier to upgrade the cartridge then the table.

 

[maxhifi]

That was my way of thinking when I bought my Rega Planar 2 in 2023. It's stock Carbon cartridge barely qualifies as decent IMO, But my plan was to upgrade the cartridge soon after purchase. I was considering the Goldring E3 but never got around to it. Finally 2 weeks ago I looked at some options now and discovered Rega now makes a very competent line of cartridges, Their ND line of 4 models. So I had their Nd3 mounted on my Planar 2. I wasn't impressed with their previous offerings. I also bought their Fono Mrk 5 MM Phono Pre-amp.

The improvement in overall sound quality is shocking at 25 hours. Which might not be too surprising considering the stock Carbon cartridge on the planar 2 was no match to the Nagaoka MP11 cartridge on a very old, entry level Pioneer PL155A Turntable that won't even shut off. The Planar 2 finally sounds like a CAD $1,000 table should.

Their is an Elliptical stylus available for the Carbon cartridge that might elevate the tables performance to at least decent for a fraction of the cost of the Nd3 cartridge.

It's much easier to upgrade the cartridge then the table.

Ortofon 2M or nagaoka mp110 also work well on a planar 2. Carbon is a great budget cartridge but it leaves a lot on the table.

Does the ND3 have three screws? Is it made in UK? Might want to try one of those some day.

 

[doctor fuse]

That was my way of thinking when I bought my Rega Planar 2 in 2023. It's stock Carbon cartridge barely qualifies as decent IMO, But my plan was to upgrade the cartridge soon after purchase. I was considering the Goldring E3 but never got around to it. Finally 2 weeks ago I looked at some options now and discovered Rega now makes a very competent line of cartridges, Their ND line of 4 models. So I had their Nd3 mounted on my Planar 2. I wasn't impressed with their previous offerings. I also bought their Fono Mrk 5 MM Phono Pre-amp.

The improvement in overall sound quality is shocking at 25 hours. Which might not be too surprising considering the stock Carbon cartridge on the planar 2 was no match to the Nagaoka MP11 cartridge on a very old, entry level Pioneer PL155A Turntable that won't even shut off. The Planar 2 finally sounds like a CAD $1,000 table should.

Their is an Elliptical stylus available for the Carbon cartridge that might elevate the tables performance to at least decent for a fraction of the cost of the Nd3 cartridge.

It's much easier to upgrade the cartridge then the table.

A 2023 Rega Planar 2 has an incredible arm! And I hear Rega has improved speed stability in their tables in the past decade, so that must be quite an excellent table. It sounds like the new cartridge is a very good match for the table. That is really the ideal, to have them matched perfectly.

 

[charles 1973]

Ortofon 2M or nagaoka mp110 also work well on a planar 2. Carbon is a great budget cartridge but it leaves a lot on the table.

Does the ND3 have three screws? Is it made in UK? Might want to try one of those some day.

Yes, The Rega Nd3 Cartridge has 3 screws. Apparently it pretty much self aligns since the center screw is a small hole, not a slot.

I'm surprised how well it suppresses surface noise, yet picks up the subtle details in the music. Rega upgraded their turntables in 2016, But it wasn't until recently they got around to their MM Cartridges.

 

[jrtrent]

Here's another way to look at the question.

If I have a humble system, but I think it sounds awesome, then I'm cool.

Sadly, we don't to keep that naivete very long.

Maybe "awesome" is asking too much of a humble system. I still like Art Dudley's comment from decades ago, "the purpose of a hi-fi is to play your records with an acceptable degree of fidelity, and thus bring music into your home." And Steve Guttenberg gave one of my favorite definitions of acceptable fidelity when he reviewed the rather humble Music Hall mmf-1.5 turntable, "It was, it was engaging. That's the thing, I kept wanting to play one record after another. And that's what this is really all about. That's what being an audiophile at its best does. Whatever the gear is, that's not, that's not really the thing. If whatever gear you have, whatever your system is, and you want to keep listening to it, that's good. So with this turntable, I kept listening. . ."

I've had the experience of spending an evening listening to records at one of several friends' homes whose system was quite a bit better than mine, then being initially disappointed when playing one of those records at home. But before the end of the first side, my toes would be tapping and I'd be looking forward to side B, and then to several more albums after that. Knowing that someone else's system is better than mine doesn't keep me from enjoying records at home, and that's been true whether I've had a pretty respectable all-Linn system or, like now, something a lot more humble.

But I still think the transducers, devices that convert one form of energy to another like cartridges and speakers, will have the greatest impact on what we hear.

Still waiting to be convinced ...

I was convinced 42 years ago when a dealer showed me how great a Linn Basik cartridge (likely a rebadged AT93) and some $70 a pair Jensen bookshelf speakers I had borrowed from my older brother could sound when the cartridge was controlled by an LP12 with Basik LVX tonearm and the speakers were driven by Naim amplification (both of which I took a year to save up for and buy). My experience over the years is that very inexpensive transducers can make wonderful music to my ears when they are well controlled by better quality turntables and amplifiers, much better than the other way around.

In 2020, Herb Reichert reviewed several budget cartridges for Stereophile, but included hearing them on a fairly expensive turntable, and wrote, "What I learned from this unusual investigation is that the difference between a $100 cartridge and a $10,000 cartridge is not nearly as big as I previously imagined. Also, the difference between a $1000 turntable and a $10,000 turntable is much greater than I thought it was." Interestingly, his favorite cartridge in that group, the most expensive of which was an AT-VM95SH, was the cheapest in the group, saying, "Music-pleasure–wise, Audio-Technica's VM95C was the most satisfying cartridge in this survey."

 

[jrtrent]

That was my way of thinking when I bought my Rega Planar 2 in 2023. It's stock Carbon cartridge barely qualifies as decent IMO, But my plan was to upgrade the cartridge soon after purchase. I was considering the Goldring E3 but never got around to it. Finally 2 weeks ago I looked at some options now and discovered Rega now makes a very competent line of cartridges, Their ND line of 4 models. So I had their Nd3 mounted on my Planar 2. I wasn't impressed with their previous offerings. I also bought their Fono Mrk 5 MM Phono Pre-amp.

The improvement in overall sound quality is shocking at 25 hours. Which might not be too surprising considering the stock Carbon cartridge on the planar 2 was no match to the Nagaoka MP11 cartridge on a very old, entry level Pioneer PL155A Turntable that won't even shut off. The Planar 2 finally sounds like a CAD $1,000 table should.

I'm wondering if maybe your Carbon's stylus was worn out. Had you replaced it at some point prior to buying the Nd3? I only ask because a few years ago you seemed pretty happy with the Carbon, saying things like, "As budget cartridges go, the Carbon hits it out of the park," and your previous comparisons to the MP11 included:

"FWIW I think the guy's are right about a good turntable with a cheap cartridge outperforming a good cartridge with a 2'nd rate turntable. I've only got 15 hours on my new Planer 2 turntable with Rega's entry level Carbon cartridge and already it has a noticeably more refined sound then the vintage Pioneer belt drive it replaces with its much better Nagoaka MP11 cartridge."

I've been using the similar AT3600L lately and find I need to replace the stylus every six months or so. In any event, I'm glad you're liking your new Rega Nd3. I'm thinking a Planar 1 or Planar 2 could be my next fun new toy.

 

[charles 1973]

I'm wondering if maybe your Carbon's stylus was worn out. Had you replaced it at some point prior to buying the Nd3? I only ask because a few years ago you seemed pretty happy with the Carbon, saying things like, "As budget cartridges go, the Carbon hits it out of the park," and your previous comparisons to the MP11 included:

"FWIW I think the guy's are right about a good turntable with a cheap cartridge outperforming a good cartridge with a 2'nd rate turntable. I've only got 15 hours on my new Planer 2 turntable with Rega's entry level Carbon cartridge and already it has a noticeably more refined sound then the vintage Pioneer belt drive it replaces with its much better Nagoaka MP11 cartridge."

I've been using the similar AT3600L lately and find I need to replace the stylus every six months or so. In any event, I'm glad you're liking your new Rega Nd3. I'm thinking a Planar 1 or Planar 2 could be my next fun new toy.

I believe different aspects of the music are optimised when comparing a good cartridge on a mediocre turntable with a lesser cartridge on a good table. The Carbon cartridge on my Planar 2 did a wonderful job with midrange, Vocals where smooth and an easy listen. And it did a good job with surface noise, AKA Refined, But instruments don't sound as good. It's mostly critical listening that reveals the Carbon's limitations.

The Nagaoka MP11's higher resolution separates the instruments more, even on a lesser table and retains much of the warmth of Rega's Carbon cartridge. I considered a Nagaoka MP110 for the Planar 2 also. It provides much of the warmth of Rega's Carbon, with a healthy dose of resolution Rega's Nd3 provides. The Nd3 on the Planar 2 layers the music. And the backgrounds are so black, it's almost like CD's on a new record. I hear nuances in the music that I never heard before. The Nd3 is a perfect match for the Planar 2. For those with a smaller budget, I like Goldring's E3 and the aforementioned Nagaoka MP110