This is inflation,
1946 $100 Quintillion Pengo This is the worst case of Hyperinflation in history. There are 3 examples of BAD case scenarios of hyperinflation in the world.
1. Bad case scenario - 1920's Germany as people were getting $10Billion dollar mortgages
2. Worse case scenario - current Zimbabwe currency. I blogged about a $100 Trillion dollar bill that was introduced and discontinued in 2009.
3. Absolute Worst case scenario - 1940's Post WW2 Hungary. Prices doubled on average of every 15 hours effectively making life savings all over the country worthless.
Imagine buying a cup of coffee and by the time that coffee has finished the price has doubled? that's the reality of hyperinflation unfortunately. Overnight, or even during the course of a work day, inflation raised so high, that it essentially made money worthless.
Hungarian currency was known as pengo. Because the hyper inflation got so out of hand in Hungary, they had to essentially scrap the pengo for a new currency called the Forint. In 1946, the Government started swapping out the Pengo for the Forint at an exchange of 400 Octillion Pengo for 1 Forint. How big is 400 Octillion pengo? That's 400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pengo for 1 Forint. To put this into further perspective, it was 11 Forints for $1USD.
1946 $100 Quintillion Pengo This is the worst case of Hyperinflation in history. There are 3 examples of BAD case scenarios of hyperinflation in the world.
1. Bad case scenario - 1920's Germany as people were getting $10Billion dollar mortgages
2. Worse case scenario - current Zimbabwe currency. I blogged about a $100 Trillion dollar bill that was introduced and discontinued in 2009.
3. Absolute Worst case scenario - 1940's Post WW2 Hungary. Prices doubled on average of every 15 hours effectively making life savings all over the country worthless.
Imagine buying a cup of coffee and by the time that coffee has finished the price has doubled? that's the reality of hyperinflation unfortunately. Overnight, or even during the course of a work day, inflation raised so high, that it essentially made money worthless.
Hungarian currency was known as pengo. Because the hyper inflation got so out of hand in Hungary, they had to essentially scrap the pengo for a new currency called the Forint. In 1946, the Government started swapping out the Pengo for the Forint at an exchange of 400 Octillion Pengo for 1 Forint. How big is 400 Octillion pengo? That's 400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pengo for 1 Forint. To put this into further perspective, it was 11 Forints for $1USD.
Funny, the trip and cord tightening over VDH products and is it anymore insane than the typical over medication pushed by our current establishement .. 
@Scott,
Yep, hyper-inflation, Our inflationary dollar is not doing too bad for a micky currency, if they manage to get min wage to 12 bucks it will have the same buying power as the 3 bucks min wage earned in 1980.
@Scott,
Yep, hyper-inflation, Our inflationary dollar is not doing too bad for a micky currency, if they manage to get min wage to 12 bucks it will have the same buying power as the 3 bucks min wage earned in 1980.
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Most expensive part of an MC is the labor.
There are not so many suppliers for Diamond tips. One of them is Namiki as OEM.
Any tip, no mather which type, will cost apx 50$ Maximum.
The Magnet maybe 5 bucks.
Gold wire with 12 mikrons diameter will not be many gramms for one cartridge, so the material itself is 1$. Making the wire is more expensive.
Cantilevers are not expensive, but its hard to find a supplier and you have to buy a lot more than one to get a good offer.
Armatures the same, also the Body.
Buth its hard to understand, why to use such a heavy material when low mass is asked.
There is a lot of blabla with tipmass and how to reduce it, and then use gold instead of copper or silver with at least 5 times lower mass, this makes no sense, but maybe it sounds better due some reasons, which are the big secret.
VdH has also MCs without pole shoes on the magnet, thus lower output level.
So use a short cantilever to increase the output and the non controllable distorsions, which give a nice coloration in sound, thats High End!
There are not so many suppliers for Diamond tips. One of them is Namiki as OEM.
Any tip, no mather which type, will cost apx 50$ Maximum.
The Magnet maybe 5 bucks.
Gold wire with 12 mikrons diameter will not be many gramms for one cartridge, so the material itself is 1$. Making the wire is more expensive.
Cantilevers are not expensive, but its hard to find a supplier and you have to buy a lot more than one to get a good offer.
Armatures the same, also the Body.
Buth its hard to understand, why to use such a heavy material when low mass is asked.
There is a lot of blabla with tipmass and how to reduce it, and then use gold instead of copper or silver with at least 5 times lower mass, this makes no sense, but maybe it sounds better due some reasons, which are the big secret.
VdH has also MCs without pole shoes on the magnet, thus lower output level.
So use a short cantilever to increase the output and the non controllable distorsions, which give a nice coloration in sound, thats High End!
There are no more many test records to measure.
Most new made records are not really good in quality. Often warped to save time and cost while cooling down.
Limited below 50 hz and limited at more than 15 khz, limited in dynamics and the Master tape is a DAT Tape or a MP 3 email...
If a missaligned hot shapes stylus is used, the test record is garbage after one times using.
In the 80's we had the Ortofon test computer. Test records had to be replaced after maximum five test cycles or the results changed in 3 dB and more in frequency response and the trackability was hardly more than 60 in the bass or 30 in the highs.
The DH HIFI Testschallplatte had built in errors....
And a 5 k thingie does not sound better than a 500$ one due price, maybe it does because it is better made or because its proper aligned.
But there are still stupids putting heavy MCs with hard suspension onto lightwight arms and wonder abouth the problems with warped records.
Most new made records are not really good in quality. Often warped to save time and cost while cooling down.
Limited below 50 hz and limited at more than 15 khz, limited in dynamics and the Master tape is a DAT Tape or a MP 3 email...
If a missaligned hot shapes stylus is used, the test record is garbage after one times using.
In the 80's we had the Ortofon test computer. Test records had to be replaced after maximum five test cycles or the results changed in 3 dB and more in frequency response and the trackability was hardly more than 60 in the bass or 30 in the highs.
The DH HIFI Testschallplatte had built in errors....
And a 5 k thingie does not sound better than a 500$ one due price, maybe it does because it is better made or because its proper aligned.
But there are still stupids putting heavy MCs with hard suspension onto lightwight arms and wonder abouth the problems with warped records.
Normalized to dollars the US still has more potential hi-end customers, why aren't they buying, or are they? The market is so tiny and fragmented that ignoring cultural differences is a mistake. I had to laugh at a comment from the Munich Hi-end show about the "bruteish" quality of America's wealthy. Maybe jacco could compare the Palm Beach yacht crowd to his buddies, they seem to pop for Bentleys and 60' boats pretty easily.
BTW 37% of American millionaires are self made women (talk about cultural differences).
Groove-T
Being old I have come up through the low compliance MC school, via original SPU series Ortofons. [I still have and use an original elliptical tip AudioNote (Japan) 'Io' cartridge.] The Io is the most musical cartridge I have had and the Be Yamamura carbon bodied with elliptical stylus is probably better but is such a pig to match to any normal preamp due to its exceptionally low output. [These were specified by Be Yamamura with no yoke and built by Audio Teckne in Japan]. I am now building a pair of trial arms for these cartridges, one with sapphire double point vertical bearings and silicon carbide beam, the other a unipivot with solid finest grain carbon hub and beam. Each of these will have substantial mass and will replace an FR64s, which is now past its sell-by date. I tried these cartridges with a Graham 1.5 arm and know exactly what you mean. I have tried to coax SPU family users to use high mass arms, but they always know best and consequently have a lot of trouble!
Being old I have come up through the low compliance MC school, via original SPU series Ortofons. [I still have and use an original elliptical tip AudioNote (Japan) 'Io' cartridge.] The Io is the most musical cartridge I have had and the Be Yamamura carbon bodied with elliptical stylus is probably better but is such a pig to match to any normal preamp due to its exceptionally low output. [These were specified by Be Yamamura with no yoke and built by Audio Teckne in Japan]. I am now building a pair of trial arms for these cartridges, one with sapphire double point vertical bearings and silicon carbide beam, the other a unipivot with solid finest grain carbon hub and beam. Each of these will have substantial mass and will replace an FR64s, which is now past its sell-by date. I tried these cartridges with a Graham 1.5 arm and know exactly what you mean. I have tried to coax SPU family users to use high mass arms, but they always know best and consequently have a lot of trouble!
Yep Brianco
The old SPU use Spheric tips and were well made, so they are fine MCs.
I hate Unipivotarms, they are not stable in azimuth.
The FR 64 Steel is still a very nice arm when working properly. I have still one, but will put it on an overhauled Thorens TD 124 MkII. Heavy Arm, Low compliance = better trackability, no matter what the rest of the world thinks. Only critical with low resonance when below 9 Hz. Will go with a DL 103 Standard Type, no problems, good sound guaranteed.
Low Output MCs are almots a PITA, IMHO.
Often Step Up Transformers are a good idea with themor a low noise Phonostage. JC does now how to make a good low noise phonostage, some other folks can do that also
The old SPU use Spheric tips and were well made, so they are fine MCs.
I hate Unipivotarms, they are not stable in azimuth.
The FR 64 Steel is still a very nice arm when working properly. I have still one, but will put it on an overhauled Thorens TD 124 MkII. Heavy Arm, Low compliance = better trackability, no matter what the rest of the world thinks. Only critical with low resonance when below 9 Hz. Will go with a DL 103 Standard Type, no problems, good sound guaranteed.
Low Output MCs are almots a PITA, IMHO.
Often Step Up Transformers are a good idea with themor a low noise Phonostage. JC does now how to make a good low noise phonostage, some other folks can do that also
Believable , considering most college grads are women and they are not doing too bad taking over jobs in corporate ..
On the Forbes list of 29 female billionaires only one was not a scratch and sniff winner..
Yep Brianco
The old SPU use Spheric tips and were well made, so they are fine MCs.
I hate Unipivotarms, they are not stable in azimuth.
The FR 64 Steel is still a very nice arm when working properly. I have still one, but will put it on an overhauled Thorens TD 124 MkII. Heavy Arm, Low compliance = better trackability, no matter what the rest of the world thinks. Only critical with low resonance when below 9 Hz. Will go with a DL 103 Standard Type, no problems, good sound guaranteed.
Low Output MCs are almots a PITA, IMHO.
Often Step Up Transformers are a good idea with themor a low noise Phonostage. JC does now how to make a good low noise phonostage, some other folks can do that also
I have my concerns on unipivots with azimuth , but , yet , they sound more right than not . I'm sure Brianco luv your DL103 choice ..
May be not the norm but here is a wealthy American, worth living.
Pursuing the love for music and helping the public cultural education.
He had his 100th birthday fest
William (Bill) Scheide
Scheide Concerts - Artists | In celebration of the 100th birthday of William H. Scheide
George
Some of you guys are 'crazier' than I am about phono mechanics. Yet you still seem to complain about lots of things.
I agree that a cartridge compliance must match the arm, this is sometimes overlooked, just to get better 'specs'.
MC is almost always better than MM.
Maybe, you should invest more effort in a more ideal phono stage to overcome some of your complaints.
I personally use a Linn Sondek, not the 'best' player that I have ever heard, but musical and easy to use. I usually use a Lyra cartridge, because I like their sound quality, and I can get them at wholesale. I agree that the retail prices of all this stuff is too much.
However, almost every time I put on an older vinyl record, I am almost stunned by the sound quality, richness, and life. There has to be something that you guys are missing, if you do not get that sort of response.
I agree that a cartridge compliance must match the arm, this is sometimes overlooked, just to get better 'specs'.
MC is almost always better than MM.
Maybe, you should invest more effort in a more ideal phono stage to overcome some of your complaints.
I personally use a Linn Sondek, not the 'best' player that I have ever heard, but musical and easy to use. I usually use a Lyra cartridge, because I like their sound quality, and I can get them at wholesale. I agree that the retail prices of all this stuff is too much.
However, almost every time I put on an older vinyl record, I am almost stunned by the sound quality, richness, and life. There has to be something that you guys are missing, if you do not get that sort of response.
Our ex-CEO heavily endows the BSO and more, and probably still has his KEF-103's from ages ago.
The West Palm Beach boat show is less than a week off, several superyachts over 100' on display (and for sale) have Dutch owners.
A number of others are semi-permanently docked in the Ft Lauderdale marina, one is the tallest registered sailing yacht in The Netherlands (235ft).
VP of the Rybovich marina and refit yard in Palm Beach is an old class mate. ( http://www.rybovich.com )
A cultural difference used to be that it's not considered civilised to flash one's wealth here, dechurching and the global economy changed that.
Nowadays, I do need not hop over the municipal border to see the latest supercars (I reside in an area with loads of hidden wealth)
An hour ago I parked next to the latest model Bentley Flying Spur W12 at the supermarket (less than a month old, +$400k car here. rather pretty automobile, btw)
Universality of man knows no boundaries, merely the fragrance of the cash differs.
Place subjects in an identical environment, and they all behave identical. (rare exceptions are near extinct species)
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Some of us have to pay retail for cartridges and simply cannot afford to shell out $x,000 on arms [top arms now retail around $6,000 median.] However we can make these and also , successfully or not, pander to our own desires.
Groove-T certainly has what appears to be a very expensive arm and cartridge….I cannot imagine that he does not have a suitable RIAA and amplification chain. I, for my part, have a Pass design Xono and Yamamura amplification…….which cost less than $200 in total, thanks to Be Yamamura having kindly gifted me many items…including cables and the AudioNote cartridge, though I have had it rebuilt since then. I also have a pair of Sonics prototype speakers bought at a very decent price from Joachim Gerhard, their designer. For these I am building a LC VSSA amp from this site. Also being built is a Paradise MC stage as designed by Joachim and friends, again here on DIYAudio. The arms are being machined locally as I do not have the necessary tools or skills. I will brag about this when it is all making good music.
To answer JC's point re. phono-stages, almost everyone I knew in London skimped on this aspect and never knew quite how good their cartridge/arm/tt combinations may have been. Somewhere there is a median line on this whole cost business. Obviously the money invested will be limited by availability for such use. I guess that the total involved now for a highest level system would be for the likes of Be Yamamura's current systems. These have to cost well in excess of $500,000.
[http://twogoodears.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/jean-hiraga-meets-ale-and-be-yamamura.html]
The most expensive MC cartridge is not that much better than its lessor cost relatives. I am now using a relatively cheap MC (Dorian) that was pre used by Brian Cheney. I have another (better) cartridge ready when I want and need it, but my system is a little lop-sided, better electronics, (Blowtorch with Vendetta inside) and slightly compromised mechanicals.
I don’t know what you mean by [just to get better 'specs’] but cart compl/arm eff. mass resonance can be (usually is) THE factor that determines the signature of the TT analogue signal.
The effects of this have been known for decades and can be registered/analysed easily by anyone using a simple sound card.
If this factor was properly addressed through magazines, it would be a blow on the modern scene of Hi-End.
Cart and arm have to work as a carefully matched system .
Changing components individually based on the glory and $$$ of each one, is wrong doing but it’s the way the ‘industry’ keeps rolling.
Another one of the ‘industry’ gems.
George
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