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New Custom PhonoCartridges

JP said:
I've always considered myself a bit of a flake. Sorry I missed the show - my trip was cancelled.
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You missed 16" of snow. We ended up staying up all night with John Statz, drinking and arguing about politics. Amazing fun, he's a great kid and a wonderful musician. We have another one Feb 6, Peter Mulvey. Be there.
 
Mel Famie said:
You missed 16" of snow. We ended up staying up all night with John Statz, drinking and arguing about politics. Amazing fun, he's a great kid and a wonderful musician. We have another one Feb 6, Peter Mulvey. Be there.
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Bummer. I've been enjoying the CD, though. I shall endeavor to make Feb happen.
 
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It reads like the marketing piece it appears to be. Did they provide any details on the test setup so it can be duplicated, or actual measurements?
 
JP said:
It reads like the marketing piece it appears to be. Did they provide any details on the test setup so it can be duplicated, or actual measurements?
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the part about the diamond rotating because it's elliptical is gibberish. It can chatter, but that's from different forces.
 
no jibberish here guys if the hi whiz bang faceted cartridges played more like music Mr Fulton would have gone that route and developed a better profile but his testing ...well is his testing... if you ever heard a good pair of his speakers driven correctly using a fulton cartridge you would not believe what your hearing....Like the paper says its been done years ago and IMO along with alot of people ....there is just less distortion with a good modern conical ...not your run of the mill crap out there to be more precise .65mils...not .7!!
 
Twisting might be an issue with the aluminium cantilevers available at the time, but since then boron, ruby and sapphire cants have been developed. I doubt there's much twisting with these.
 
I've heard the same cart (PanaMat EPC-451C strain gauge) with ballpoint, elliptical, Shibata, and OEM line contact. Definitely preferred the line contact, the ballpoint was fine for old mono and Dynagroove records. FWIW, nobody ever cut lacquers with a ballpoint, always a triangular chisel tip. It's possible to comp the recording for ballpoint playback but nobody had done that since Dynagroove, so a line contact tip profile is the one that most accurately reproduces the motion of the cutter stylus on all modern LP records.
 
Hmmmm, I've had mixed results. I found the conical on my DL103R to be quieter than the special elliptical on my old DL110. Then again I had some Nagaoka JewelTone JT322 carts which had Shibata tips which I found to be quite noisy in terms of surface noise. Then in direct contrast to that I have a Denon DL303 with a replacement Garrott Bros Alu Alloy cantilever and Shibata tip which is by far and away the quietest cartridge I've ever heard.

I suspect there are good and also bad examples of all tip types on carts. Having said that, I daresay my abillity to setup a cartridge properly has no doubt improved since I tried the old Nagaoka JewelTone JT322 so it could have been a setup issue.
 
mjw21a said:
Hmmmm, I've had mixed results. I found the conical on my DL103R to be quieter than the special elliptical on my old DL110. Then again I had some Nagaoka JewelTone JT322 carts which had Shibata tips which I found to be quite noisy in terms of surface noise. Then in direct contrast to that I have a Denon DL303 with a replacement Garrott Bros Alu Alloy cantilever and Shibata tip which is by far and away the quietest cartridge I've ever heard.

I suspect there are good and also bad examples of all tip types on carts. Having said that, I daresay my abillity to setup a cartridge properly has no doubt improved since I tried the old Nagaoka JewelTone JT322 so it could have been a setup issue.
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Its not the stone causing the increase or decrease in surface noise, that's the cantilever. The loudness and duration of pops and tics is due to the cantilever momentarily swinging in free air, and or uncontrolled wave forms on the cantilever pipe.
 
Maybe the fact that the DL303 has a really short cantilever could affect things somewhat too. I imagine beling shorter it should be a bit stiffer preventing it from twising as easily.
 
Surface noise is a record surface condition problem, a stylus that sits lower in the groove and scans more groove wall vertical area is likely to find more crud.
The solution is a clean quality pressing, not reducing the resolution of the scanning, which compromises full proper recovery of the content.
 
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Pio1980 said:
Surface noise is a record surface condition problem, a stylus that sits lower in the groove and scans more groove wall vertical area. It's likely to find more crud.
The solution is a clean quality pressing, not reducing the resolution of the scanning, which compromises full proper recovery of the content.
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I'm not sure I completely buy that explanation because higher end arms also decrease surface noise ,regardless of stylus type.
 
dmckean said:
I'm not sure I completely buy that explanation because higher end arms also decrease surface noise ,regardless of stylus type.
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That's a resonance problem with a given arm, enhancing the noise. No other relationship is likely if the bearings aren't rattling.
 
I certainly noticed that my JVC QL7 table is much quieter than previous tables I've had (Hitachi HT351 etc). I figured it was to be expected with a heavier platter and better arm. Different cartridges seem to affect surface noise also. My current all around fav is my Shibata retipped Denon DL303. It's both far quieter than my DL103R and more detailed as well, top to bottom.
 
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