Telarc 1812 revisited

Raul,
Most of your cartridges are very old, up to 30 yrs old, and you cannot possibly know whether the cartridges compliance and stylus tip are within the original specifications. The compliance could be lower, due to gummed up suspension, or higher, due to deteriorated rubber. Therefore, with all due respect, your test results are irrelevant and cannot be used to provide conclusive evidence of a particular cartridges tracking ability.
Fwiw, I have just played the 1812, Antal Dorati, Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, recorded in 1958 on Mercury SR90054 - original pressing.
With Final Audio Parthenon, VM7 4.5kg Copper Mat, VDS17 1.8kg Stabiliser ( with washer under the record ), Fidelity Research FR64S with 230g counterweight, Koetsu Black Goldline ( 2 yrs old, played sparingly ), all the drums play with no mistracking. The bells are clean and despite the surface noise cymbals and their decay are as clean as a whistle. The cartridge is tracking at 1.93g with static balancing employed, no spring.
The best tracking LOMC I own is the Dynavector Nova 13D, 2nd rebuild less than 2 years ago, by Dynavector, which when mounted my Naim Aro will track Chris Rea "On the Beach" cleanly despite a severe warp which is about 1/4" high on a small section of the record. The stylus does not leave the groove.
For VTA/SRA and antiskate settings one of the records I use is
Venezianische Konzerte, Harmonia Mundi 1C 065-99 614, where you can clearly hear the sound reverberating off the back walls of the recording venue when everything is correct.
Others are Emma Kirkby recordings, excellent for pinpointing anti skate to get a clean rendition of voice in the upper registers without mistracking.
Elizabeth Maconchy on Lyrita, original pressing, you can hear the conductor breathing in through his nose ( must have been blocked ) and the gap between the rostrum and the orchestra is clearly defined.
Walter Leigh, Trevor Pinnock, Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings, Lyrita SRCS 126. On this record the sound changes dramatically between 1st and 2nd movement. In the 1st movement the recording venue sounds congested & humid, in the 2nd movement the humidity disappears and the space around everything opens up. When the VTA/SRA/antiskate are correct you will hear clearly the location in space of the harpsichord and the gap between it and the orchestra.
Ragtime Razzmatazz on Wilson Audio, is worth seeking out. There are liner notes on the microphone placement and what to listen for when setting VTA/SRA. Dave Wilson explains clearly what happens when the SRA is too high or too low. When it is correct you "see" the keyboard and each note up and down the scale is equidistant - the mikes are up close behind the pianist and the upright piano.
For devotees of linear tracking arms :
Sota Vacuum/ET2/Madrigal Carnegie Model One/Counterpoint SA5.1/Quicksilver 8417/Martin Logan CLS : try William Jackson: The Wellpark Suite (Mill Records MR001, 1986). On Track 6 you can clearly see the walls of the recording studio as they are defined by the reverberation of some "woodblocks" in a percussion piece. The reverberation runs along the back of the recording studio room to the top left corner and then proceeds to come toward the front up the left hand wall.
The same mistake I continually see in audio is enthusiasts using VTA/SRA to adjust the spectral balance of their system, compensating for aberrations elsewhere in their system. I look for natural sound, least compression, harmonic completeness and accurate timing (harmonics and decay of notes) when setting VTA/SRA. Tracking tends to move naturally to an optimum when you look for these attributes in reproduction in a decent system.

JCarr - have you tried a FR64S on your Final Audio TT ? I do not get any upper midrange coloration in my system. I use static balance only with this arm which opened the soundstage and improved resolution considerably compared with the use of dynamic balance when using a LOMC.

Dear Tonywinsc: It's not easy to have 15 hz resonance value, it needs a non-sense cartridge combination but could happen. Now, That I remember I experienced only two times that a cartridge/tonearm combination skipped in a normal LP but because the resonance frequency was in the low side that is where belongs warps ( as you said. Remember that all LPs comes with warps. ) but I never experienced a trackimg " trouble " because the resonance frequency was to high.

Now, a cartridge with intrinsic good tracking abilities will have a lot less " problems " on extreme situations and you can see it on demanding inner grooves on different tracks where the good trackers never fail and you can't be aware of any single sign of mistracking when in a non so good trackers almost always distort.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

Dear J.Carr: What's " out of my mind " is why the Akiva differences on tracking abilities not only against the Audioquest but especially against the Lyra's when you designed both cartridges?

Btw, my Telarc 1812 is the original SR one.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

Hi Raul: The Audioquest is a very, very old design that has little to do with the Lyra cartridges of today. The mechanical concepts are different, the magnetic concepts are different, the suspension concepts are different, the stylus design is different...

The Akiva's weight, compliance, key dimensions etc. were designed to optimally match the Linn Ekos tonearm. And unlike our "Lyra" branded designs, it had a plastic body. However, the core design of the Akiva (including the cantilever and suspension sections) is not so different from other cartridges that I designed around that period, such as the Argo and Titan.

I repeat that to track the 1812 has never been my goal - not even remotely - so for me personally this entire thread is a non-issue. The only major statement that I dispute is that extreme tracking ability is the key parameter that should be used in general to distinguish OK cartridges from not OK cartridges. This is like claiming that the ability to take a certain corner at 455mph at one particular race track in the entire world is what distinguishes an excellent motorcar from a so-so one, even though the legal limit for public roads in every country is 60mph or 80mph.

But Raul, if the Akiva is the cartridge that pushes your buttons, I am happy for you. Enjoy, and perhaps consider picking up a spare (prices of low-hour Akivas have dropped somewhat now that the Kandid has replaced it as Linn's top model).

Regarding tonearm resonance and tracking performance, a tonearm acts as a high-pass mechanical filter to relieve the cartridge of reproducing low frequencies that are below the tonearm resonant frequency. The resonant frequency is normally placed between 8-12 Hz because this filters out pressing defects such as warp wow components while leaving the music mostly intact. If the resonant frequency is set higher than 12Hz, the tonearm will start to respond to bass signals rather than the cartridge, which is good for tracking, but may attenuate what the cartridge reproduces of the LP's lowermost frequencies.

Hi Dover:

>have you tried a FR64S on your Final Audio TT?

Certainly. It's not bad, although outclassed by modern tonearms such as the Graham Phantom Supreme, and vintage arms such as the Technics EPA100MkII (caveat - my EPA-100 has been completely rebuilt with ceramic ball-bearings rather than the original rubies, and rewired with flying-lead signal outputs instead of the original 5-pin connector).

>I do not get any upper midrange coloration in my system.

In my applications, adding constrained-layer damping to the armtube made it considerably more neutral to my ears, and made the dynamics more linear.

>I use static balance only with this arm which opened the soundstage and improved resolution considerably compared with the use of dynamic balance when using a LOMC.

After trying dynamic, static, and combining the two, I found that a combination worked best.

I have a spare FR-64S that I am planning to rebuild with an alternative armtube of different geometry and more sophisticated construction. The FR64S is a nice tonearm for experimentation.

BTW, Dover, are you aware of the original Kitamura generation Final Audio Labs, or are you only familiar with the brand post-Takai?

kind regards, jonathan carr

Dear friends: Maybe you can think that I'm in love with bass frequency range because some of the LP's that are in my overall evaluation process shows it.

The original Telarc 1812 is a great recording, and not because the cannon shots, by any standards. Yes, it's an old full digital recording ( Soundstream system. ) and way better than several full analog recordings.
Other than the cannon shots the recording has several bass passages with timpany and big drum along explosive cymbals with a dynamic power no other recording I heard ( elsewhere ) can even, it's the nearest sounds ( on that regards. ) to a live music experience.

Do you want to know how good is your system? do you want to know how higher or lower are the distortions generated by your audio system?

Well, you need this recording to know it for sure. In the other side the Telarc 1812 is a very good tool to be sure about the VTA/SRA and LOMC load impedance set up, the recording can tell you how good is your set up on these and other regards.

the recording has 2-3 passages where you can hear at the rear of the stage the sound of a triangle and tambourine instruments. Well, the first time that appears is after the first timpany/big drum/cymbals grooves followed by a passage with chords, horns and wood instruments: here on the left side must be appears first the triangle sound where you need to identify ( clearly/precise ) the triangle full melody identifiying not only the fundamental notes but the triangle distinctive harmonics.
Depending on the VTA/SRA set up accuracy you will hear it complete or only the fundamental notes or can't listen the triangle melody or even you can't hear the triangle sounds.
When you can't hear it even with changes in VTA/SRA then you want to try a different load impedance and for sure it will appears. The quality level you achieve on this triangle tell you a lot of your system set up and kind of resolution and distortion levels.
In this same first triangle passage comes a short passage ( last recording soundstage layer too. ) with the tambourine in the same left side that you must heard if exist the right cartridge overall sxet up.

As I said the 1812 is not only a good digital recording but a useful set up tool.

+++++ " And that was no trick. " ++++

the Telarc 1812 is in no way a " trick ".

Btw, the bass " jump " ( as you said ) factor means more about system higher distortions than real low bass with full power dynamic.

If your system has a " pristine " bass management that " jump " doe's not exist ( I know because I had in my system when I thought that that were the right deep bass performancve but I learned to confirm I was wrong. ) not even " bass flor-shaking ". What makes that flor shacking performance in that low frequency range normally are more high distortions than an accurate and neutral quality performance to achieve this we always need a pair ( at least ) of powered subwoofers with a system integration in a true stereo fashion not using it as system bass reinforcement.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.