Pretty good link, Chris. It DOES show what a typical MM cartridge does, just like I stated previously, seconded by Bob Cordell.
Now, SY appears to have a SUPER cartridge. It really is exceptional for a MM. Looks more like a high output MC, but that is not for me to say, except that I doubt that many others here have any MM that is even close in performance.
George, I would appreciate it if you lower your tone with me, until you are sure of what you disagree with me about.
Now, SY appears to have a SUPER cartridge. It really is exceptional for a MM. Looks more like a high output MC, but that is not for me to say, except that I doubt that many others here have any MM that is even close in performance.
George, I would appreciate it if you lower your tone with me, until you are sure of what you disagree with me about.
Indeed, Technics showed that the issue wasn't MM technology, it was implementation. The ultra-low tip mass translated into great bandwidth and trackability, and I abandoned some pretty fancy MCs (we were doing some head amp design for Dynavector at the time so had Rubys and Diamonds, as well as competition from Koetsu) once I got a chance to use the Technics.
Now here's the sad part: do you know why this cartridge was only "officially" available in Japan and had to be bought gray market in the US?
Now here's the sad part: do you know why this cartridge was only "officially" available in Japan and had to be bought gray market in the US?
Option 2 there was no difference and I'll bet you never tried without peeking. Imagime the embarassment.
The $300 wooden one, and frankly I enjoy the music I listen to just fine some of it was recorded in the 20's-40's and the cart hardly matters. The signal comming off an LP has so many artifacts I don't see some of the claims made and why discuss it when it is beneath you and your associates to make a good faith effort to actually prove you do hear what you claim you hear.
Also, what about the brigade of very experienced audiophiles that claim only a spherical tip can track many LP's?
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Steve was close. At the time (early to mid 1980s), $400 was an expensive cartridge. Technics determined that Americans who would spend $400 for a cartridge were unlikely to buy anything branded "Technics," no matter how good, and that people who were happy to buy something branded "Technics" were unlikely to spend $400 for a cartridge. The Class A rating they got in Stereophile barely budged the meter.
Panasonic eventually scrapped the tooling, alas. It would be great if someone duplicated it, but that's highly unlikely in today's market.
Panasonic eventually scrapped the tooling, alas. It would be great if someone duplicated it, but that's highly unlikely in today's market.
That was common for Japanese companies. Pick up a copy of Stereo Sound and you'd see very high end offerings from the likes of Pioneer, Technics, Sony, etc. that never sold outside of Japan.
And then you have some western companies that have certain product lines that are typically only sold to Japan (i.e. JBL and Tannoy).
se
You guys have a lot of opinions, and maybe with a few exceptions, you have little to contribute to hi end audio.
When it comes to double-blind testing: I KNOW that I can be easily fooled by it. Now let's say that I can't be fooled into thinking that everything is essentially the same? Then, I have been over-designing every audio product that I have made for the last 1/3 century.
So, if you think that ABX testing is the real and only thing useful, then anything I say will be a waste of time for you and your associates to participate in anything with me.
You see, it has been done before. Once, my colleague Ivor T. of Linn, got 'suckered' into one of these tests and he failed. We STILL hear about his 'failure' of that one test, today. That is what I am being coerced to do, by people here.
Now, once again, please understand that the Wilson Audio test record, with both sides containing the same music, from the same master tape, BUT that an AD/DA converter was put in the path between the disc cutter and the master tape recorder on one side, was made to EDUCATE, not anything else, because Dave and his wife found it so important. Certainly not for any commercial reason. It is an insult to their efforts to dismiss it so easily.
When it comes to double-blind testing: I KNOW that I can be easily fooled by it. Now let's say that I can't be fooled into thinking that everything is essentially the same? Then, I have been over-designing every audio product that I have made for the last 1/3 century.
So, if you think that ABX testing is the real and only thing useful, then anything I say will be a waste of time for you and your associates to participate in anything with me.
You see, it has been done before. Once, my colleague Ivor T. of Linn, got 'suckered' into one of these tests and he failed. We STILL hear about his 'failure' of that one test, today. That is what I am being coerced to do, by people here.
Now, once again, please understand that the Wilson Audio test record, with both sides containing the same music, from the same master tape, BUT that an AD/DA converter was put in the path between the disc cutter and the master tape recorder on one side, was made to EDUCATE, not anything else, because Dave and his wife found it so important. Certainly not for any commercial reason. It is an insult to their efforts to dismiss it so easily.
If memory serves, they did something like that, basically a VW motor placed as a mid-engine in a cheap frame. I think they actually did sell a bunch of them.
Technics, could have easily sold that cartridge in the USA under a slightly different name, or even the same name. Interestingly, I tried to buy a Denon MC in Tokyo, in 1978, and it cost more there, than in Berkeley. Kind of a surprise.
Japanese at that time could be 'real snobs'. For example, did you know that the Toshiba low noise jfets were first brought in by independent importers, and Toshiba America did not list them in their catalog?
Japanese at that time could be 'real snobs'. For example, did you know that the Toshiba low noise jfets were first brought in by independent importers, and Toshiba America did not list them in their catalog?
A result like that is only a failure if you have a desire for a particular outcome, rather than a desire to learn what's true. For those of us in the letter camp, the test and its results were far from a failure, they were useful data, with the experiments described in enough detail to replicate. I've tried it myself (though not with the Sony unit) and had the same result. So has (to my knowledge) everyone else open-minded enough to trust their ears, not their preconceptions.
The nice thing about doing a real experiment is that others can repeat it, and if they get a different result because, for example, they have a better listener or a better system or whatever, our knowledge base increases. If the result holds up over time, ditto, we know about what's a solved problem and can turn our attention elsewhere.
SY
Are you sure that this TECHNICS was moving magnet? They had a patent which showed a variation of moving iron.
GRADO, AKG, SONUS, B&O, ADC were all moving iron, PICKERING, DECCA, STANTON had some MI models.
Different names used by each company(magnetic reluctance, induced magnet, flux bridge), denoted variations in the way they were modulating the magnetic field produced by the stationary permanent magnets. They all held patents describing the details (if anyone is interested, I’ll post US patent numbers).
MI cartridges had quite lower L and R coils than MM types.
Here I think that despite the attention on inductance, resistance and subsequent frequency response we pay on the various MM-MI types, we should think if that was the real reason of acoustic differences that people were and are reporting when comparing various cartridge types.
The MM-MI output voltage (mV at 1kHz, 5cm/s) varied a lot among brands and models of the same brand.
AKG 0.95-1.65mV, Audio Technica 4.5-5mV, B&O 2.12mV, Goldring 5.5-6.5mV, Grado 2.5-5.5mV, Ortofon 2.0-6.0mV, Pickering 0.33-5.0mV, Shure 3.0-9.5mV, Sonus 4.0-5.0mV, Stanton 0.3-4.5mv, Technics 1.2-2.5mV. (data from 1984-1988 catalogues)
Preamplifiers of that time had MM RIAA input overload limits ranging from 90mV to 1V with the majority below 250mV, while the sensitivity was 0.2-2.5mV for 500mV out.
Was the harshness, luck of resolution ect the result of FR of cartridge type or was it the result of RIAA-pre different drive level or overload/luck of?
George
Are you sure that this TECHNICS was moving magnet? They had a patent which showed a variation of moving iron.
GRADO, AKG, SONUS, B&O, ADC were all moving iron, PICKERING, DECCA, STANTON had some MI models.
Different names used by each company(magnetic reluctance, induced magnet, flux bridge), denoted variations in the way they were modulating the magnetic field produced by the stationary permanent magnets. They all held patents describing the details (if anyone is interested, I’ll post US patent numbers).
MI cartridges had quite lower L and R coils than MM types.
Here I think that despite the attention on inductance, resistance and subsequent frequency response we pay on the various MM-MI types, we should think if that was the real reason of acoustic differences that people were and are reporting when comparing various cartridge types.
The MM-MI output voltage (mV at 1kHz, 5cm/s) varied a lot among brands and models of the same brand.
AKG 0.95-1.65mV, Audio Technica 4.5-5mV, B&O 2.12mV, Goldring 5.5-6.5mV, Grado 2.5-5.5mV, Ortofon 2.0-6.0mV, Pickering 0.33-5.0mV, Shure 3.0-9.5mV, Sonus 4.0-5.0mV, Stanton 0.3-4.5mv, Technics 1.2-2.5mV. (data from 1984-1988 catalogues)
Preamplifiers of that time had MM RIAA input overload limits ranging from 90mV to 1V with the majority below 250mV, while the sensitivity was 0.2-2.5mV for 500mV out.
Was the harshness, luck of resolution ect the result of FR of cartridge type or was it the result of RIAA-pre different drive level or overload/luck of?
George
I lived in Japan in the mid eighties, and it was a big thing back then with Japanese consumers.
Japan is a highly organized market economy, to state it in friendly terms, and manufacturers in collusion with distributers kept the price level artificially high in Japan for all electronic devices and what have you. Black re-imports were thugishly repressed.
In the end, a consumer strike ensued where almost no TV's were bought for a while. Didn't help much.
You do get better service in Japanese stores though, right till this day, so that money has to come from somewhere too.
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