Turntable Cartridges

[Adrian]

The world is your Oyster!!! Anybody remember that one..... Frankie says?

At 700 euro... there is quiet a few carts to chose from, the Ortofon Quintet Black, Clearaudio Concept MC, being just two I would have as a option if I was heading in that direction of upgrade. Another option might be worth looking at is the Ortofon Cadenza range... I recently saw a Cadenza Red on ebay new.... for 850euro, good value I thought.

Other things to consider... ie type of cantilever, i.e. Boron, Aluminium, type of diamond, spherical, eliptical, fine line, loading 100ohms?, Output 0.5mv or 0.3mV etc etc. Interestingly I followed a discussion on the Wam... where posters were discussing tracking force and which they preferred etc.

On the plus side... due to their small size, cartridges are very easily stored..... so one can build up a neat collection, say a 300 euro cart, 700 euro cart and so on up to 2K cart, all neatly tucked away in a drawer.

You can then start a small cartridge rolling process over the course of the year... a cartridge for Spring, Autumn, Winter & Summer etc as your mood shifts. This would allow your cartridges to last longer... however slightly higher risk of damaging one during a change out etc. But as long as you have the stylus guard in place, take your time... then you should have no trouble etc.

I am very impressed with the Clearaudio build quality...and the Concept MC seems to have features of much higher cartridges, i.e.. microline diamond, Boron cantilever etc.

I took a punt on the Ortofon Rondo Blue a while back... and I am v. happy with it... very nice cartridge. Nothing ventured noting gained eh???

One other point... just make sure the weight of the cart falls into the range of the weight specified for the tonearm. By and large the overwhelming majority of carts will work with the majority of tonearms... but if you head into very exotic extremes you may be pushing the boundaries. 7 to 12 grammes seems to be the normal operating range etc

[DaveF]

All good stuff Adrian. Thanks for that. I'm surprised there isnt more talk or interest shown in TT cartridges. Surely they're just as important as speakers, being a transducer and all that etc.

[fergus]

All good stuff Adrian. Thanks for that. I'm surprised there isnt more talk or interest shown in TT cartridges. Surely they're just as important as speakers, being a transducer and all that etc.

+1 on that Dave. They are, after all the first point of contact with the vinyl. I have done a limited series of experimenting recently and there are big differences to be heard even with modestly priced cartridges.

[jkeny]

This might be of interest (apart from the price) - an optical TT cartrdige https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9Nx0vkyID8

[Ivor]

This might be of interest (apart from the price) - an optical TT cartrdige https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9Nx0vkyID8

I'd love to hear one... quite happy with my old fashioned pointy bit in a groove but it would be interesting all right.

[jkeny]

This might be of interest (apart from the price) - an optical TT cartrdige https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9Nx0vkyID8

I'd love to hear one... quite happy with my old fashioned pointy bit in a groove but it would be interesting all right.

From what I can gather, it's still a needle in the groove just that the conversion to electrical signals at the end of the vibrating shaft is done via optical sensing & not MM or MC

[Diapason]

Wasn't there some punter who was working on a laser system to read records just about the time CDs came out? I seem to recall reading that he finally completed it years later.

[fergus]

An interesting development sure enough. The old A/B test would be good fun here.