What do you know about the original Neumann DST Cartridges and their Copies?

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bulgin

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Joined 2006
blueangelaudio.com
#1
Are these cartridges 'lusted after' because they are extinct and survivors almost unobtanium? Are the alleged copies such as Lumiere and Tzar in your analogue dreams because of their alleged ethereal performance, not to speak of their cost?

These cartridges - the Neumann originals and their remakes - seemingly by their design, appear to have turned moving coil cartridge design on its head so to speak.

Among their features - this type of cartridge is heavy, their VTF is around 5g (I get squeamish when mc cartridges have to track at 2.5g+), they have extra long cantilevers and their air core? coils appear to be situated close to the stylus - what about tip mass?

I have read about the alleged dramas surrounding the Japanese Lumiere cartridges and the 'romance' of the current 'top of the pops' Tzar cartridges constructed by a clever and highly skilled Russian gentleman in his ice-covered Siberian workshop.

Anyone here care to fill me in and errr...enrich my life with pleasant dreams😀
 
#4
The AT looks like a conventional high performance MC to me, and nothing like the DST in the few pictures I have seen. Just a bit too pricey for me at the moment, Bill probably knows what that means.. lol

I think the Tsar cartridges are fascinating, unfortunately I doubt I have anything that would work well with such a cartridge. (Certainly not the arms I use on a daily basis and I doubt the Schick would be the best match either)
 
#10
#11
Well it's almost 5 months later and I did what I had to do. Many false trails, my workbench is littered with casework prototypes but here it is😀

Case knurled aluminium (still to be anodised and coloured), mass 9.5g, tracking force 2.5 to 3.5g depending on arm, copper air core triangular coils-above-the stylus, needle elliptical diamond, magnets neodymium. How does it sound? Good🙂

Just in time for Christmas.

bulgin
 

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#16
Groove T said:
Yes, this is the best way to increase the moved mass of the whole system as high as possible and keep the output as low as possible without the construction beeing similar to a cutter head.😀
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Yes, it is. But the main problem with both Neumann and AT is low effective coil shape, because in both cases only 1/4 or 1/5 of coil wires are in the focused magnetic field, so as a result- a very low output. If you locate coils (and shape them in a form suited for) so they are mainly in the field focus, it is easy to get a healthy output signal of average LOMC and even HOMC range, with acceptable 3-4 gram downforce and moderate moving mass (despite what coils are near the stylus tip). Air coils are even better, because they allow use of very strong magnets, those causing distortions in designs with the core based coils. I already did that trick, and it plays 1,5 times louder than DL-103. Sorry for not posting a picture, not ready to show my coil shape yet.😀
 
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#18
The 1mm square wafer coils of the JVC mc1 and 2 were fully immersed in the magnet field and looking at the ART 1000 I do not understand why they built it this way.

The 40 year old JVC appears to be a superior design in comparison.
.2 MC output /30ohm

Regards
David
 
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