Telarc 1812 revisited

As a fact Telarc don't made the 1812 recording as a test one Lp.

R.

Doug/Peter: Better yet, don't think nothing: to know and to contribute on the subject you have to listen to that recording several times and understand first what is happening down there and then you can have first had experience to make a serious contribution to the tracking cartridge abilities/distortion relationship.

With out those experiences you are only guessing??? with out any help and we need help to learn.

R.

of course that that listening experiences has to do it with 4-5 different top cartridges where at least one can track in full the recording.

R.

Raul, Thanks for your advice. I agree, the purpose of this discussion is to learn about the subject at hand. I once saw a very informative video of what happens on a micro scale to a Formula One racing tire as it heats up at speed. One of the things I learned was that there is no ideal tire tread for ALL road conditions. Specific designs are optimized for different conditions, and that is why extreme performance cars change tires frequently depending on conditions.

I think Doug's car analogy was well explained.

I don't have 4-5 top cartridges to learn about tracking abilities in depth, first hand. I am sorry. That is why JCarr's contributions are helpful.

Dear Jcarr: +++ " backed up my position with measurements supplied by neutral, independent organizations ++++ " ++++

unfortunatelly not direct related measures: that in precise way showed the direct relationship between tracking abilities and distoriton levels.

you posted somewhere:

+++++ " distortion in a cartridge is caused by physical issues (such as tracking resolution) as well as magnetic, and the better the physical aspects (styli with longer and narrower contact patch, more linear dampers, less body resonances, more complete energy evacuation from the cartridge structure),........ for lower moving mass and reduced tracking distortion. " ++++++

your today position already changed because a few months ago tracking distortion was something more important to you.

Now, you posted this too ( I'm still surprised when I read it due that you are a cartridge designer. ):

++++++ " Lyra's markets has been that to go below 0.5mV (5cm/sec) means that many phono stages will be less than happy. The user may hear problems like noise, grain, insufficient bass response, or in less problematic situations, they may simply not hear the improvement in resolution that the lower-output cartridge should be giving them.................

As far as the cartridge is concerned, lower output is more ideal. Lower output means less metal in the coil windings (copper has a specific gravity of 8-9, which is greater than iron!) for lower moving mass and reduced tracking distortion. Lower output also means fewer coil winding layers, which enables the coils to be of cleaner shape and will improve crosstalk, phase response, and channel matching (cleaner-made coils also look much better).

As a cartridge manufacturer, our problem is that the user may not be happy with the sound, but in most cases they will blame it on the cartridge rather than the phono stage or that they have excessive electrical contact points in the signal cabling system (which seems to work OK with MMs, MIs and high-output MCs), but will impair the sound of low-output MCs. Since no manufacturer likes to hear that users are unhappy, we've shifted our cartridges away from where they were some years ago (0.22-25mV, single-layer coils) to our present level (0.5mV, double-layer coils,..... "+++++

I'm surprised that you knowing that the best quality sound can comes from lower output MC cartridges you shift to higher output even against that knowledge. Seems to me that marketing is more important.

Anyway, sooner or latter we will see more and more better LOMC cartridges with higher tracking abilities and I think you will not be an exception. Time is the best judge.

++++ " any worthwhile rebuttals so far... " +++++

well I think " both sides " because you prove nothing, at least not yet.

Anyway, for me this " discussion " was a learning one in several audio and non-audio subjects.

Stay with your today success and be prepared for the future.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.