++++ " The Bavarian audiophiles (and the Japanese) know their onions " +++++
problem is that they don't really know, maybe they think they know but this is different to really know.
FR
Mr. Ikeda more that anything is a cartridge designer, a good cartridge designer, but even that it's curious that the best quality performance cartridge ( a vintage one LOMC. ) was designed for the today My Sonic Labs cartridges.
IMHO normally japanese audiophiles have a truly different music/sound priorities that almost all other world audiophiles they like: tubes, horns, SPU cartridges FR tonearms, SAEC, MS TTs and the like. Almost all are sinonimous of high distortions/colorations and that's what they like and nothing wrong with that.
It's untrue that I did not owned a FR66 or that I did not know how to make the set up, even today I own the FR 64. I never talk with out first hand experiences and after made several tests and comparisons.
Problem with the FR tonearms is that are all metal non-damped balanced designs.
Trough my experiences the worst self resonance/vibrations tonearm/headshell build material is metal or a blend of it. A tonearm must " fight " against stylus/cantilever and cartridge body generated vibrations/resonances ( at microscopic level ) that one way or the other needs to be damped and at the same time that the tonearm/headshell can stop/disappears the feedback of those cartridge/LP generated resonances/vibrations: this can't do it by the all metal FR design and not only that but due to those microscopic cartridge/LP resonances the tonearm wand and bearing is exited with creating additional resonances/vibrations/distortions that degrade the cartridge signal as in no other tonearms.
Additional the FR balanced design kind of operation has its own " ringing "/noise " to operate in balanced way with out no single kind of dampening that could stop those " vibrations ".
That's what the FR owners are hearing. That, as some of you, like it what are hearing does not means in any way that those very high distortions disappeared just because you like it: NO you are hearing those distortions, period.
Now, not one but two times a gentleman that knows a lot more that any one of us because he is a cartridge designer and he tested his cartridges with almost any kind of vintage/today tonearms and that knows exactly how each tonearm affect the cartridge signal posted ( when some one asked. ) that the FR is not a tonearm he prefered and even posted that the Ikeda tonearm are a little better than the FR some of you are in love with.
The FR subject is not what we like but what is wrong or right. Yes, that authority or what ever adjective you can give to those tonearms are weighted with " tons " of distortions.
SAEC, is a little different but with high distortions too. Gentlemans years ago whom brought here the SAEC 8000/506 tonearms was me. I?m the original owner of the SAEC tonearms and I was really impressed by ( build quality between other things. ) but as many people I learn trough the time problems with. First is the way resonant headshells and second its double knife bearing that is way resonant and can't stop feedback or even dissipate it in right way.
Do you remeber the cartridge designer Sao Win? well he stated very emphatic not to use his cartridge ( LOMC ) design with knife bearing tonearms. Wonder why? and this is the people that knows and knows a lot of things that no one of us can't even imagine because we are not expert cartridge designers.
Do you know something?, in some audio subjects some of us learned faster than others as in some other audio subjects some other gentlemans learned faster than us and IMHO in the FR subject some of you do not learned enough.
Three-four years ago when I started to post that today digital medium outperforms the analog one some of you Agoner's just " laughed " because you did not learned enough about. Welol at least one of you today learned about and even posted a thread where he said something that I posted 3-4 years ago. The difference down there is that my digital/analog finding was 3-5 years ago using a humble 1K Denon player and the gentleamn I'm referng tokk him additional 4 years and 150K of invest on a digital item to take in count that digital is superior.
Of course that each one of us are different mainly because we have different audio/music trainning.
Today I'm " sticky " with the LOMC alternative for very good reasons. nandric was the only one of us with a clever/wise brain to states always that he prefered the LOMC alternative over the best MM/MI and I agree with him. Perhaps only the Astatic MF-2500 can be really a challenger to top LOMC cartridges.
I respect that almost all of you are still sticky with the MM/MI alternative I'm not and not because is not a good alternative but mainly because I like to learn I like to grow up. As Lewm said: life is to short to stay " sticky ".
Gentlemans, all of you know the respect I have for each one of you and I know that I'm not your " cup of tea " because who I'm and because my posts but this is the way I'm and believe or not no one of my posts try to hit in severe way to any one.
Anyway, have fun.
regards and enoy the music,
R.
