I have learned a ton about cartridges and styli since joining this forum. So now I have a question for all of you knowledgeable folks from whom I have gained so much knowledge over the past several years. What improvements to the actual internals of a cart do manufacturers make over the years to give better performance (aside from say, laminating the coils or improving the stylus)? For instance, what did Shure do to the v15 carts from inception to the ultimate v15v? Or what technical aspects make a vstv better than an m91 (again, not considering the stylus, which I realize can make a profound difference in performance.)
Improvement in cartridge design
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cafe latte
Addicted Member
Many, but many ideas have been there for decades and re tried but slightly different. Look at Decca for example these are tip sensing carts ie the motion of the actual tip of the stylus is what is causes the signal not the other end of the cantilever like in most carts with rubber suspension in the middle. Then moving mass, many ideas over the years to make it low. Now tip sensing there are MC versions too and amazing designs like Ikeda, all sorts of designs all different approaches over the years to the same bunch of problems MM MC and MI and even Electret and strain gauge, lots of ways to make a cart, physics does not change but makers approach with different approach and revisit old ways in different ways..
Chris
Chris
SaSi
Seriously Illogical
There are lots of writeups from manufacturers with information filtered and "enhanced" by the marketing people but the truth about improvements in cartridges focuses in three aspects (imho).
1. Moving magnet carts use a moving magnet. That has a mass. That mass needs to be as small as possible. Without sacrificing output signal level, improvements need to be made in the magnet's strength (new materials) and wires (weight).
2. The stylus is the contact to the groove that picks up the signal. Imrprovements were made from early conical to eliptical, hyper eliptical and then "exotic" shapes like shibata, stereo-hedron, fine-line, micro-ridge (you name it).
3. The cantilever is what mounts the stylus to the "engine'. It needs to be lightweight, rigid, not have resonances, etc. etc. Improvements there include shape and material. Exotic materials like boron were used to improve them.
1. Moving magnet carts use a moving magnet. That has a mass. That mass needs to be as small as possible. Without sacrificing output signal level, improvements need to be made in the magnet's strength (new materials) and wires (weight).
2. The stylus is the contact to the groove that picks up the signal. Imrprovements were made from early conical to eliptical, hyper eliptical and then "exotic" shapes like shibata, stereo-hedron, fine-line, micro-ridge (you name it).
3. The cantilever is what mounts the stylus to the "engine'. It needs to be lightweight, rigid, not have resonances, etc. etc. Improvements there include shape and material. Exotic materials like boron were used to improve them.
When it comes to carts, IMO their is only one way, buy them and try them. Find out which ones you like most and you can probably sell the ones you don't without much loss if you keep the hours down. But one thing I would recommend, is to give anything a bit of listening time before you make your mind up. You need to let your brain get use to something as it tends to always like what your familiar with.
There are MANY things that go into answering that question!
There is the manufacturability that has to be considered. The carts are small and th.e components are small; each has to be made with precision and each has to be identical to the next. Very little variation from one to the next.
If a company comes up with a really nice product, a competitor can’t just copy it. So a competitor will change it up enough so as not to get sued for patent infringement.
If the goal is high sensitivity to groove modulations, then the transducer must be low mass, The tip must be made to follow and read the grooves. The transfer of physical motion to electrical signal has to be extremely faithful and precise.
The character of sound produced must be considered. If heavy and deep bass is the priority, then a springy suspension is needed. If smooth and extended treble is the priority then any resonance in the cantilever must be very well controlled; this is usually at odds with deep bass.
For a flat, neutral frequency response, the transducer system must be designed for wide bandwidth that stays wide and flat despite the loading produced by varying TTS, varying preamps, varying amps. Coils and pole construction become very important.
Esthetics become important; Who wants to buy and mount an UGLY cartridge? What is NOT ugly?
There are cost constraints and material constraints. There are TT arm constraints. Form does not always follow function.
Everybody’s idea of a great sounding cartridge can differ. So who is your target audience? What price point?
Many things to consider.
MRL_Audio
RIP 2022
Couldn't agree with this statement more. You can read / listen to what others think but at the end of the day, it's your equipment, ears and environment that determine whether you'll enjoy the cartridge or not. No two sound exactly the same. Then there is always the money aspect of being cavalier and saying you need to try them to determine if they are for you. The main thing here is that to a large degree if the cartridge doesn't work out, short of breaking it, you can get 80 to 90% of your money back selling it here or elsewhere. Frankly have a collection of early 60's cartridges that to my ear sound nearly as good as many of the recent $1,000+ cartridges I own. Makes me really wonder how far cartridge technology has actually come. For example I just installed a Fairchild SM-1 on a Pioneer PL-7 idler table. The sound from the unit is beyond outstanding. The specs of the cartridge, 11g in mass, 4 x 10-6 cm/dyne in compliance and 3g of VTF would put many people off... until they heard it.
Surprised that the role of the damper hasn't come up. One of the main variable with older cartridges is whether the damper has hardened/dried up/shrunk, which will affect the sound of the cartridge (and in the case of shrinking, may lead to the whole cantilever falling out, which drastically affects the sound). Granted that this doesn't happen to all cartridges, and even all cartridges of the same model, and granted that these effects are often the result of decades of aging, and cartridge makers didn't expect their products to be in use a half century later, but when do they start? I know from experience that the AKG suspension often aged very quickly, and I assume this is part of the reason they stopped making them, despite their superlative performance.
So I'd but elastomer research right up there with areas where advances have been made, and could be made.
So I'd but elastomer research right up there with areas where advances have been made, and could be made.