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Cartridge Loading and Compliance Laws

After reading into various threads concerning cartridge/arm compatibility, then gathering information from various cartridge manufacturers I am left feeling confused with head spinning a bit.... Ok, cart compliance I get, arm and total mass I get, arm/cart compatibility and the whole 8-12 Hz ideal res. freq. range I get. But why on earth then do some phono cartridge mfgs claim their carts are ok to use with med. mass common modern arms when they are in the highish 20-35cu compliance range? Am I missing something??

Ie. Soundsmith, VanDenHul, Ortofon and who knows, maybe more??

From what I gather, below 8Hz is bad and above 12Hz is bad. If one is less ideal than the other, which is worse I wonder, too low res. freq. or too high?
jeremy72
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
7,068 posts
 
Correct, if the tables are turned, then you are out of luck.

This is not entirely true. Some arms have multiple weight systems, so if you can use a heavier counterbalance weight closer to the arm bearings that will get you lower effective mass as opposed to lighter weights further out.
tonywinsc
583 posts
 
Good point. When talking about effective mass, we are really talking about inertia and the moment of inertia is proportional to square of the distance from the axis of rotation. So, yes, more counterweight mass closer to the pivot will reduce effective mass.
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rauliruegas
9,123 posts
 
Dear Jeremy72: Laws?, IMHO there are no laws about but only theory about: that sometimes works and sometimes does not it depends on cartridge overall characteristics and tonearm it self.

IMHO it is not easy to take as a rule/laws a " generalization " like the resonance frequency range: 8hz to 12 hz. In this subject I think we can do better if we know what in specific we/you are talking about: which cartridge and which tonearm as which problems you are experienced with or what you don't like or want to improve at quality performance level.

I think that if you bring here that information some of us could help you with out be speculating on something we really can't even imagine.

regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.
jeremy72 OP
97 posts
 
So from what you guys are saying if an arm had an eff. mass of say 14g then if you somehow made the counterweight heavier then you would automatically be reducing that number? Not sure I understand... if you have an arm that is 14g eff. mass, then how is that number able to be changed by increasing the weight on the end? Isn't it is what it is by design? Maybe you are just kind of manipulating things is what you are saying, to increase the res. freq. of the two.
jeremy72 OP
97 posts
 
So many times have I read about the 8-12Hz cart/arm res freq guideline its just like it seems to be a law to me because these numbers are the ones always brought up. Now people some times claim 9 or 10 is soem magic number even. I am no analog wiz or do I understand all of this stuff I am just wanting to understand what the hecks going on so I don't wind up putting together something that does not go together and sounds awful or has some weirdproblem.
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