are moving coils actually better than MM's?

or is it a bit of audio snobbery and myth?

 

Hi,

The very short answer is "Yes".

The longer one is "Yes, but."

The really long one takes more time than I have right now.

MM's biggest problem is the fact that they rely on resonance between the coil inductance and load capacitance to equalise the high frequencies flat (without that resonant boost the HF would be severely rolled off) and usually the resonance point is well below 20KHz if a flat in band response is desired, with anything above resonance consigned to bin. Further, load capacitance is always a non-constant so MM's can sound really bad if the load capcitance is wrong.

Also, the actual armature (moving parts) of the MM Cartridge are much heavier than anything found with MC's, meaning ther eis more HF rolloff.

All that said, there are many ways to arrange things and a well set up and designed MM cartidge can still be a better choice than many badly designed MC Pickup's, also, with MM's banned to the bottom rungs of Cartridge manufacturers they rarely are fitted with hyper-elliptical stylli, which must count as distinct advantage over most MC's, which for some completely unfathomable reason are invariably fitted with stylli whose geometry is unsuited to replaying music from LP using pivoted tonarms and which are also only usable with per record Stylus Rake Angle adjustment (commonly mistermed VTA).

So, in principle MM's suck, most do too in reality, especially when compared to a competently designed MC, competent implying for example the use of stylus geometry appropriate to the task.

Ciao T

 

Music Maker III

 

Slightly off topic, but don't forget the existence of moving iron cartridges also. If you haven't heard a Decca London you've missed out on your hi-fi education.
Useful article here

 

To the audiophilistine, such as myself, there's not a great difference. In fact, I only really notice one, the fact that the volume for a given volume position is now lower and I need a higher volume setting to make the same noise. The Zürich Linn man says that's normal, Linn itself says it isn't. Who cares? The only difference it makes is that, with the old K9 MM, the volume level was the same setting for both CD and TT, so side-by-side comparisons of CD and TT were dead easy. With the Klyde MC, I have to adjust the volume. As I don't make a habit of this, it's not important. In retrospect, I could have stayed quite comfortably with the K9. Could have saved a lot of money. But that perhaps could be the epitaph of most audiophools.

 

You'd be better off with a midi system, Tony.

In general, MCs pull a lot more detail out of the groove because the stylus/cantilever/coil assembly has lower mass and hence lower inertia, than with an MM cartridge. The output is lower, so tones has to turn it up more.

 

I hate to admit it, ol' bean, but you might well be right!

 

Thorsten, is there anything in hifi you don't know about? You should write more articles on your website, you have a lot to offer.

So, James does that mean because ATC's drive units are so big and heavy, and yes the cones are, that they don't pull detail out because of their intertia?
that's the logical conclusion.

 

Hi. Interesting post. Am I misreading what you are saying here or are you saying that most MCs are scuppered next to their theoretically inferior MM cousins because of poor choice of stylus geometry? Just wondering what stylus geometry you consider appropriate?

PS. This isn't a troll, I'm genuinely interested. My understanding (and lmited experience with a V15VxMR) was that the more complex stylus geometries generally make for a big improvement with the caveat that they are much more sensitive to correct alignment (I wasn't aware they were more sensitive to SRA as well).

 

more thoughts of chairman 3d

thorsten is to modest to mention his work on the tnt audio website.
very good reading.

be nice to get a real good review of some atc's i reckon.

 

Hi,

Most things probably. I don't really have much HiFi Background, but a lot in Pro Audio in a country where untill 1989 there where no CD Players.

If I had the time....

I have written quite a lot scattered all over.

I have a sort of index of various writings in my "audiophile" yahoo group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Thunderstone_audiophile/links

You might also find the Files section of my "technical" yahoo group (sadly requires subscription to access, on requirement by Yahoo, not by me) of interest, it has a lot of fundamental stuff about acoustics, audio and music:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Thunderstone_technical/files/Acoustical Foundation Classes/

Here something from the notes with my Systems page at the "Analogue Department on pickups, they may proove usefull (even though they do not cover the differences in the pre-emphasis EQ applied to LP's, where even in the 1970's & 1980's many records where cut with EQ's differing as much as 9db @ 20Hz from the RIAA standard, including even US labels):

"Over the years that are included in my [LP] collection many changes occurred, from wide swings in style rake angle, groove wall angle, the use or absence of tracing distortion compensators and so on. I have found that using several cartridges with strongly varying characteristics seems best.
The records pressed from the late 1960's all the way through the 1970's tend
to have used a tracing simulator during cutting and thus require a pickup with a conical stylus (I use a Denon DL-103) to work correctly, though gentle elliptical styli cuts like the one used on the Ortofon SPU-GTE also seem to work from a subjective point.

Recordings mastered before the widespread use of tracing simulators (generally before the late 1960's) tend to sound best to my ears on the old SPU-GTE, maybe not unrelated to the fact that the QC listening at the factory would have likely included exactly such a pickup.

Modern pressings from around the late 1970's/early 1980's onwards tend to have a pretty uniform SRA and groove wall angel, thus allowing the theoretical superiority of line contact styli to be leveraged effectively, so most of such LP's tend to be played with the "modern" combination, though depending on recording and mood I may choose one of the others too, there is no dogma to the use of pickups."

BTW, mounted on my turntable (Acoustic Solid "Solid One", around 40Kg of gleaming german metal) are:

Goldring Elite (forgot suffix, Silver Coils & Gyger S Stylus IIRC) in Origin Live Silver 250

Denon DL-103R on SME 3009 Series II Non-(Dis)Improved
(I used to use a plain 103 but killed the cantilever, the replacement 103R appears marginally better)

Ortfon SPU-GTE on Ortofo RS212 Special Arm

My Phonostage has three inputs too, switchable, so it is really easy & quick to switch around. It currently lacks the adjustable EQ curves, these will be included soon though.

Ciao T

 

Hi,

Yes, something along these lines.

Depends on how the record is cut and what sort of tonearm you use and how well you set up.

There are many records that can play correctly only with a spherical stylus, simply because they have been pre-distorted to correct for the distortion caused by such a stylus. Also, a spherical stylus when placed in a grove is always "correctly aligned" in geometrical terms. Even if SRA and Alignment are subideal the stylus will be correctly placed in the grove and the misadjustment will cause only minor problems.

Any record which was no pre-distorted to compensate for spherical stylii would be ideally replayed by a perfectly aligned and SRA (VTA) adjusted hyperelliptical stylus (aka line-contact, Gyger, VanDenHul, Shibata et al cut diamond) placed in a linear tracking tonearm.

If you use traditional pivoted arms with a line contact stylus it is very obvious that the stylus will be corretcly aligned with the groove only in the actual nullpoints. Using traditional alignments actually makes sure problems happens near the end of the groove where the high frequency modulations are physically shortest for a given frequency (due to the variable grove velocity/constant RPM operation of the LP).

As traditional alignements minimise only the average misalignemnt but often maximise the misalignment near the end of the record problems are unavoidable. Given that at least for classical material the climactic sections invariably fall into the inner groves the results can be very frustrating.

I have shifted to alignments that minmise misalignment in the inner groves (where we can least afford ANY misalignment) and trade of increased misalignment at the beginning of the record where not only the music is usually less demanding but also the actually size of the moduclation is much larger for a given frequency and thus more misalignement is tolerable for a given frequency and amount of distortion.

SRA (VTA) of course remains a problem, especially as it has varied by well over 20 degrees over time, though it stabilised in the 1980's around 20 degrees.

Finally, elliptical stylii fall somewhere inbetween on all of this, the less elliptical they are the more they are like spherical stylii and visa versa (should be obvious really).

I hope that clears up some issues.

Ciao T

 

My bro's a pro sound and light man, knows his stuff, I have some knowledge of the area, too. They are much better with the technical info. they proffer, too. Some hifi companies treat you as idiots and the attitude is " I designed it, its the best, that's all you need to know. You don't need info on how it works. I think that's horrendous considering the prices they expect you to pay.

I have read some of your stuff on the web, lots of it!! good stuff, too. If you can find the time, be nice if you could bring it all together in one place.(apart from the millions of postings!!

Yes don't rub it in!! Germans are better at engineering than us!! I have the greatest of respect for the german efficiency attitude. Sadly, England is concerned with the cheapest way, not the best way.

You don't have a problem with English BTW, tho' you mentioned somewhere you did, your writing is very cogent/precise use of grammar, understanding of words, etc.

Goldring Elite is meant to be a tad laid back, but nice cartridges.

Other 2 are very old. Interesting the Denon has an old profile stylus tho' you rate it?

When did these new shape styli start to come in?

 

Hi,

Thanks for the Flowers, if I had the time..... But I don't. I very much feel like the narrator in Andrew Marvell poem "To his coy mistress":

"But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity."

I would not call it "laid back", but of course "laid back compared to what?" is the question. Next to a Koetsu it is actually quite forward. I'd call it "neutral".

My 103R is brandnew actually, but my Ortofon SPU is indeed very old.

I like the 103 very well. With many older records it is the only cartridge that sounds "right". Even with records where more modern designs dig out a little more resolution the 103 has a certain "rghtness" to the sound, probably because of the Alnico Magnets it uses. The only cartridges that does the same trick of sounding "just right" I had a chance to hear all share also Alnico Magnets (old Ortofon SPU, Kondo $ 15,000 Io) or fieldcoil magnets (Audio Note UK top range Io).

With Quadro LP's. Before that fairly mild elliptical stylii and spherical where your lot. Then someone came to the aparently sensible (in reality it was a lot less sensible) conclusion that if the Stylus resembled the cutting stylus more closely it would be able to track the record more accuratly.

Ciao T

 

In principle, you are right: this is the advantage that electrostatics have over moving coil speakers.

Have a look at the review of the SCM 150s posted in the ATC thread.

 

Thorsten, why are broadcast cartridges so revered, and why are certain ones chosen...makes (I know emt and denon...any others?) is it just trackability?

 

Hi,

No idea. I'm audio pragmatist, to me anything that works is "fair game". To me these old design broadcast cartriges (relatively low cost nonwithstanding) simply "bring it". I simply do not have the money to spend $ 15,000 or something silly like that on consumables.

I don't think it's trackability. Neither SPU nor 103 are trackmeisters, they track well enough, but not that great.

EMT's are actually Ortofon SPU's in design. Funnily enough, Kondo's super expensive cartridges also trace their lineage and large chunks of the design to the SPU. The Denon 103 was a completely seperate development in Japan as answer to the SPU. Then all the Jonny come lately's decided they could do better.... ;-)

I'm not actually putting modern pickups down per se, but they often have very unbalanced combinations of virtues and vices, which is nice to tune your system to give you the sound you want.

On the other hand, many hideously expensive cartridges are made with poor sample to sample consitency (alignment etc.) whereas broadcast pickups reliably measure the same, are perfectly internally aligned and simply work.
In some ways old Broadcast Turntables are the same, tonally neutral, reliably and consistent.

Something that will make a lot of people laugh (and me grin when I remember how much money they wasted) a perfectly nice vinyl rig can be made using a Technics 1200/1210 (make sure it has not been abused though) with a Denon DL-103 bolted into the original Arm (which is VERY EASY to adjust) as it likes to be used in these old style non-rigid S Shape arms and not modern high rigidity arms for best sound.

Just avoid all the original arm wiring and externally rewire the arm with audio note silver (or similar, even enameled copper wire is great actually).

Try first un-damping the platter (remove the glued on damping pads) and then use a glass plattermat instead of the rubber one, with a thin velour leather platter mat. Place on a seismik sink or similar DIY Air suspension.

The result is a very capable Turntable setup for little money. No, it will not sound like all the High End Turntables, but that is the whole point. It will be fuss-free, reliable, workman like and NEUTRAL sounding, giving you what is on (the) record, instead of editorialising. So to speak a broadcase setup.

Ciao T

 

You DO bore for Britain after all!

Au revoir J