Msiebers,
Sorry if I came on strong. Like you, I had no desire to offend. Providing the context for your Shelter 501 experience was valuable of course, as long as Mark doesn't necessarily expect the same on a different arm. IME the character of a cartridge can change substantially depending on the arm it's used on. That's all.
I have been following the discussions of resonant frequency on the vinyl engine and AA by headshell/hybris. He has stated several times that a higher resonant frequency is desirable, and that has matched my own limited experience.
I haven't seen that conversation. I'll look it up, thanks for the reference.
What is the bass frequency that is affected ? If it is the low bass (20-40 Hz), that would explain why many would not hear the impact, since most systems Iincluding my own) do not reproduce this range.
The frequencies affected are indeed in the lower bass, so your supposition seems correct. My speakers are only flat to 33Hz, though they do produce some useful energy below that in the usual rolling off way. Presumably the lower one's system goes the more this will matter.
The experiences that lead me to prefer a resonance frequency around 10-11Hz were based on altering the effective mass of my own arms, a TriPlanar and an OL Silver. On the TP this is especially easy to do, depending on the cartridge, because the arm comes with three different counterweights. (Some other arms like Moerch have a similar facility.) Unless one has a very heavy or very light cartridge, it's normally possible to balance it and apply VTF using either of two weights. Obviously this slightly alters the effective mass and resonance frequencies.
IME with two Shelter 901's and three different ZYX R1000 series carts, a resonance frequency around 10 provides slightly better bass. With the ZYX's it's fairly subtle. With the 901's it was more obvious.
I feel that tracking improves with a higher resonant frequency.
I couldn't detect any tracking ability changes. The ZYX's always tracked and traced superbly when properly set up. The Shelter's didn't do as well regardless of setup. Of course other combinations may well act differently. Yours obviously does.
If very LF energy inputs (warps, footfalls, etc.) are causing tracking problems then tuning the arm/cart resonance a bit higher to avoid them could be an effective compromise solution. (Oy! Everything in vinyl is a big compromise. What a goofy way to reproduce music!)
