Actually in this moment i have an Oracle Delphi MkIII with Breuer Arm on my work bench. The Audio Technica ART 1 stylus is worn out.
One of the major issues - back in the LP day - with phono cart was getting them to track well at highest groove modulations. Trackability tests were often done by magazines. The distortion would rise fast with freq when the cart couldnt track it well enough. Often for trackability to be improved, a higher cart pressure needed/recommended. Thus faster wear also.
The shape of the tip was found to influence the trackability and other shapes were developed..... guess they didnt care that much for lowest distortion of conical tip if it didnt track well. So other tip shapes became a consumers choice..... and a mismatch to the cutter predist etc didnt seem to matter a lot. Trackability tests were part of every cart measurement/review.
As to tip life... it vary a lot..... Shure says min is 400 hours for their tests ---- but no where do I find how they determined that number --- at what % distortion or wear increase did they deem not Ok for determining when to replace the tip? How much wear to your LP is OK or not OK? Its a mess of troubles. IMO, LP's only virtue is its better resolution at low levels than 16b/44k CD. But at a very high price in too many ways.
Hi Res 24b+/96+ ADC and DAC need sota low and line level amp stages on IP and OP. There is where analog is alive and well and where our best time an effort be used today. This is again where discrete circuits could have advantages.
THx-RNMarsh
The shape of the tip was found to influence the trackability and other shapes were developed..... guess they didnt care that much for lowest distortion of conical tip if it didnt track well. So other tip shapes became a consumers choice..... and a mismatch to the cutter predist etc didnt seem to matter a lot. Trackability tests were part of every cart measurement/review.
As to tip life... it vary a lot..... Shure says min is 400 hours for their tests ---- but no where do I find how they determined that number --- at what % distortion or wear increase did they deem not Ok for determining when to replace the tip? How much wear to your LP is OK or not OK? Its a mess of troubles. IMO, LP's only virtue is its better resolution at low levels than 16b/44k CD. But at a very high price in too many ways.
Hi Res 24b+/96+ ADC and DAC need sota low and line level amp stages on IP and OP. There is where analog is alive and well and where our best time an effort be used today. This is again where discrete circuits could have advantages.
THx-RNMarsh
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Hi John,
To achieve reasonable performance, a CD player (SACD / DVD) has to be aligned properly. This includes both mechanical and servo adjustments. The minimum price point for a CD player that sounds good has been about $2,500 CDN list price over the years. Setting these things up can make an amazing difference. It is entirely possible you haven't heard a good CD player yet. Do they have some problems? Sure they do, but they don't normally sound bad unless you are using the lower end products. It is also very true that single chassis players sound better than ones with the D/A stage in its own box. There are technical reasons for this.
Having said that, I also have to suffer with a cheap Ortofon 540 on either a Thorens 125 MKII or a Thorens 126 MK III. Original arms on both machines. I use an old "Platter Matter" that bonds the LP to the turntable. That pretty much eliminates speed variations due to changing modulation drag. Again, not perfect but it is far better than anything else I have come across yet. Yes, the tables are set up as well.
I really enjoy listening to both formats. CD is the quick setup thing if I'm tired, LP comes to the fore when I feel like enjoying some older material. I use a Marantz 3650 or SC-9 preamplifier normally. Again, I have not heard anything better as yet.
Really good equipment is available, but sometimes you have to perform minor surgery to get it to it's best. Other times you must have the equipment set up properly, and that is not how a new unit comes out of the box. I think that is the real battle. Luckily I can do that myself, having been properly trained. The same holds true for cassette decks on open reel machines. Nakamichi (I have a BX-300) and have set up the 1000 ZXL units. I even have a new Tascam R-R. The big problems there are binder coming off the tapes (cassettes can have this problem too) and availability of pancakes in small quantities.
For those of you who have open reel tapes that are degrading, you can reset the binder to some extent by heat treating them A good to work at The Metalworks Studio (Triumph) designed and built one. I gather that the temperature isn't high, and the tapes stay in there for many hours. His advice is to duplicate the affected tape the first time you run it after the treatment. Current tape shouldn't have this problem if you store them in a cool play, tails out. Wound too tight or in a warm to hot environment will promote "print through". That is normally heard as a "pre-echo" before the music starts or before a loud passage.
Anyway John, try a good CD player that a competent technician has aligned for you. There is a bit of an art to this as well as following the instructions in the service manual. This might give you a second music source you can enjoy.
-Chris
To achieve reasonable performance, a CD player (SACD / DVD) has to be aligned properly. This includes both mechanical and servo adjustments. The minimum price point for a CD player that sounds good has been about $2,500 CDN list price over the years. Setting these things up can make an amazing difference. It is entirely possible you haven't heard a good CD player yet. Do they have some problems? Sure they do, but they don't normally sound bad unless you are using the lower end products. It is also very true that single chassis players sound better than ones with the D/A stage in its own box. There are technical reasons for this.
Having said that, I also have to suffer with a cheap Ortofon 540 on either a Thorens 125 MKII or a Thorens 126 MK III. Original arms on both machines. I use an old "Platter Matter" that bonds the LP to the turntable. That pretty much eliminates speed variations due to changing modulation drag. Again, not perfect but it is far better than anything else I have come across yet. Yes, the tables are set up as well.
I really enjoy listening to both formats. CD is the quick setup thing if I'm tired, LP comes to the fore when I feel like enjoying some older material. I use a Marantz 3650 or SC-9 preamplifier normally. Again, I have not heard anything better as yet.
Really good equipment is available, but sometimes you have to perform minor surgery to get it to it's best. Other times you must have the equipment set up properly, and that is not how a new unit comes out of the box. I think that is the real battle. Luckily I can do that myself, having been properly trained. The same holds true for cassette decks on open reel machines. Nakamichi (I have a BX-300) and have set up the 1000 ZXL units. I even have a new Tascam R-R. The big problems there are binder coming off the tapes (cassettes can have this problem too) and availability of pancakes in small quantities.
For those of you who have open reel tapes that are degrading, you can reset the binder to some extent by heat treating them A good to work at The Metalworks Studio (Triumph) designed and built one. I gather that the temperature isn't high, and the tapes stay in there for many hours. His advice is to duplicate the affected tape the first time you run it after the treatment. Current tape shouldn't have this problem if you store them in a cool play, tails out. Wound too tight or in a warm to hot environment will promote "print through". That is normally heard as a "pre-echo" before the music starts or before a loud passage.
Anyway John, try a good CD player that a competent technician has aligned for you. There is a bit of an art to this as well as following the instructions in the service manual. This might give you a second music source you can enjoy.
-Chris
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Yes Elvee, thank you.
Follows the quote from a Control Systems book:
http://store.elsevier.com/Control-System-Design-Guide/George-Ellis/isbn-9780123859211/
“The velocity error is reflected directly in the velocity feedback signal when the actual motor speed is constant. Of course, the servo loops work to reduce the ripple in the velocity signal; unfortunately, the only way to smooth ripple in the feedback signal is to create torque ripple that induces ripple in the actual speed. This results in an improvement in the feedback signal while actually worsening the actual velocity. In fact, if the servo-loop bandwidth is high enough in comparison to the ripple frequency, it can induce severe torque ripple to cancel an error that exists only in a feedback signal. On the other hand, if the ripple frequency is well above the servo bandwidth, the servo loop does not correct; the motor speed is relatively smooth, but the feedback signal indicates ripple.”
Thank you for all that info and experience.
Some authorities raise this to 35kHz (maybe due to smaller tip dimensions and mass ?)
I quote from that page:
"Dadurch entsteht bei der Abtastung die Spurverzerrung, die im wesentlichen Klirrfaktor k2 besteht. Neumann baute 1968 den Tracing Simulator, der dieses Problem löste."
Frank, there, they say that in 1968 they built the Tracing Simulator allright but there is no declaration of universal adoption on every lathe of them, although one can infer from the past form of the verb (löste) that they would provide the Simulator as an option for all their lathes, so that there would be no such technical problem from then on if the customer wished to.
George
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I have a couple of papers on my website on cartridge tips from AJ van den Hul -lets say the JC of cartridges
See here, first two links.
Jan
See here, first two links.
Jan
still don't understand dither, noise shaping
please show a plot where LP noise floor vs frequency compares with perceptually weighted noise shaped dithered 16/44
LP do have the potential for high frequency extension, under the slew rate/trackability curve which starts limiting amplitude as low as 5 kHz - but as mentioned 30 kHz subcarrier quadraphonic disc could be cut, signal retrieved
but with large noise, and loss from repeated play wear
Crank medicine too? I'm beginning to think stylus tip geometry is another effects generator like valve rolling.
IF people would actually like to easily tell the difference between different stylii. The difference in performane between the Ortofon RED to Black series would be wonderful to measure. Only the stylii and perhaps the cantilever is upgraded. IF I were doing phono testing today, that is what I would do.
He actually performed his procedure on my gf of the time; a few months later she was gone. Still blame him
Jan
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Hi John,
The cantilever might very well be the same for both. The two stylii differ only.
When I was younger, I bought the VMS-20E MKII since the specs were very close to the VMS-30E MKII. Later I bought the entire cartridge for the VMS-30E MKII and heard an amazing difference. It was not subtle at all! However, money is the limiting factor these days. But I take comfort in the fact that Ortofon cartridges are really wonderful things to listen to, even if they have user replaceable stylii. Now, if Ortofon were to send a pair here, I would very happily compare them. Of course, those cartridges would be staying!
Now, which table should have which cartridge between the 125 MKII and the 126 MKIII??
-Chris
The cantilever might very well be the same for both. The two stylii differ only.
When I was younger, I bought the VMS-20E MKII since the specs were very close to the VMS-30E MKII. Later I bought the entire cartridge for the VMS-30E MKII and heard an amazing difference. It was not subtle at all! However, money is the limiting factor these days. But I take comfort in the fact that Ortofon cartridges are really wonderful things to listen to, even if they have user replaceable stylii. Now, if Ortofon were to send a pair here, I would very happily compare them. Of course, those cartridges would be staying!
Now, which table should have which cartridge between the 125 MKII and the 126 MKIII??
-Chris
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