As I get older and (hopefully) wiser I am starting to question a lot of my beliefs about audio. Back when I started the flat earthers were in full swing, CD was just coming in and MM were for budget systems only.Now back in the 80s I bought into this, so my AT-F3 sounded better than my P77 and my current benz micro even better than that. But recently I have started wondering if MM are really that bad and I need to start having a look at them in a new light.
So things I am considering
1. Back in the mid to late 80s the 'old guard' at the time, who all generally had shure V15s and claimed them 'accurate' generally all accepted CD with open arms.
2. The younger turks in the press tended to reject CD and loved MC cartridges, claiming they had 'warmth' that MM lacked
3. low output MCs needed better phono stages to work well, so were generally paired with more expensive equipment
4. MM can be more critical of loading to get a flat FR and phono stages of the time were often limited in options.
5. MC rarely have a flat FR as they have a rising top end which is rarely corrected for in the phono stage.
6.Before the wood bodied grados MM tended to look cheap, MC looked bling.
7. When I was 19 I believed what the magazines told me (much to my shame now)
8. People have only recently discovered stylus rolling and the level of interchangability that exists between models allowing some new and interesting hybrids to be made.
9. Maybe MC simply are better, although I have yet to see any measured evidence of this.
weighing all that up I am starting to wonder if a really good MM phono stage, with correct loading options and the right cartridge might not be worth re-examining. Not as a retro kick but as a more accurate transducer. Would be interested to hear other views.
Note 1 : the ortofon SPU I view as an outlier in all of this.
Note 2 : This is all a bit of fun, its only a rock being dragged through plastic.
Note 3 : I have always wanted my vinyl to sound as close to CD as possible. I personally am not after some romantic re-imagination of the sound. I have a Radford power amp when I want to get misty eyed for the days before I was born.
Note 4: This is not a trolling attempt. I am seriously interested in a deeper understanding.
Bill
P.S. On a search, this has been asked before in another way, but rapidly descended into a p*****g match, so lets see this time.
So things I am considering
1. Back in the mid to late 80s the 'old guard' at the time, who all generally had shure V15s and claimed them 'accurate' generally all accepted CD with open arms.
2. The younger turks in the press tended to reject CD and loved MC cartridges, claiming they had 'warmth' that MM lacked
3. low output MCs needed better phono stages to work well, so were generally paired with more expensive equipment
4. MM can be more critical of loading to get a flat FR and phono stages of the time were often limited in options.
5. MC rarely have a flat FR as they have a rising top end which is rarely corrected for in the phono stage.
6.Before the wood bodied grados MM tended to look cheap, MC looked bling.
7. When I was 19 I believed what the magazines told me (much to my shame now)
8. People have only recently discovered stylus rolling and the level of interchangability that exists between models allowing some new and interesting hybrids to be made.
9. Maybe MC simply are better, although I have yet to see any measured evidence of this.
weighing all that up I am starting to wonder if a really good MM phono stage, with correct loading options and the right cartridge might not be worth re-examining. Not as a retro kick but as a more accurate transducer. Would be interested to hear other views.
Note 1 : the ortofon SPU I view as an outlier in all of this.
Note 2 : This is all a bit of fun, its only a rock being dragged through plastic.
Note 3 : I have always wanted my vinyl to sound as close to CD as possible. I personally am not after some romantic re-imagination of the sound. I have a Radford power amp when I want to get misty eyed for the days before I was born.
Note 4: This is not a trolling attempt. I am seriously interested in a deeper understanding.
Bill
P.S. On a search, this has been asked before in another way, but rapidly descended into a p*****g match, so lets see this time.
Some MMs were bad, but also some of the problem was the phono preamps of the time. Many had input circuits that interacted with the cartridge,
causing needless distortion. Design for low noise was also less rigorous back then. Some phono preamps overloaded with the higher output cartridges.
More than a few preamps sent the fragile cartridge signals through a bunch of cables and switches before they even got to the pcb.
And, not matching the load capacitance for flattest response was common.
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I took every possible precaution and my Grado Reference Platinum was still no match for my ZU Denon DL-103 even with mediocre transformers into the same phono stage.
I have a bunch of those outlier SPU cartridges, a nice little assortment of different ones, and I love them..
I was a late arrival to LOMC cartridges, but did own a couple of HOMC in addition to several LM series Ortofon MM types. The HOMC were much less fussy about loading than the MM types I had on hand.
Oddly enough the very early Shure M3D with a good OEM N3D stylus on the right arm and a competent phono stage sounds rather good. I heard one recently and was impressed. As a teen I tossed an M3D in favor of what probably was a much more mediocre Shure OEM from Radio Shack. The M7D is much less expense and with the right stylus gets you most of the way there.
I experimented with a Stanton 380 Flux Valve stereo cartridge, it's rather healthy 10mV output was really about the limit for my phono stages, it was very noisy and I did not care for it, not sure if the stylus might have been the root cause there.
I have a bunch of those outlier SPU cartridges, a nice little assortment of different ones, and I love them..
I was a late arrival to LOMC cartridges, but did own a couple of HOMC in addition to several LM series Ortofon MM types. The HOMC were much less fussy about loading than the MM types I had on hand.
Oddly enough the very early Shure M3D with a good OEM N3D stylus on the right arm and a competent phono stage sounds rather good. I heard one recently and was impressed. As a teen I tossed an M3D in favor of what probably was a much more mediocre Shure OEM from Radio Shack. The M7D is much less expense and with the right stylus gets you most of the way there.
I experimented with a Stanton 380 Flux Valve stereo cartridge, it's rather healthy 10mV output was really about the limit for my phono stages, it was very noisy and I did not care for it, not sure if the stylus might have been the root cause there.
My experience is that MM tends to be warmer sounding, whereas MC tends to be brighter, more detailed, and edgier sounding. Quality MM has a nice body to the sound. YMMV.
MMs can sound excellent.
However, truly excellent MMs are rare as there is no real market for these due to their undeserved budget reputation. I only know maybe 1-3 MM cartridges of current production that are truly high-end.
This is so true.
True MMs depend critically on the proper cartridge loading (input capacitance). In my experience even 50pF changes can clearly be heard with e.g. the Audio Technica AT150MLX. Unfortunately almost all commercial phono stages do not allow to adjust this cartridge loading and even almost all DIY designs work with fixed loads.
This is a typical experience stemming from uncorrectly loaded moving magnets.
Infact, the brightness is easily adjustable with cartridge loading and MMs can sound overly bright if this is prefered.
This is not possible as the vinyl has to be mastered differently from the CD for technical reasons.
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I hope you were using them with different tonearms of different equivalent mass (or at least using head shells with different masses) as otherwise one of the two cartridges was running under technically wrong conditions. Resonance frequency is the key here and it can completely ruin the sound if it is too low. That happened to me once and it is interesting to see how much influence this can have.
However, truly excellent MMs are rare as there is no real market for these due to their undeserved budget reputation. I only know maybe 1-3 MM cartridges of current production that are truly high-end.
This is so true.
True MMs depend critically on the proper cartridge loading (input capacitance). In my experience even 50pF changes can clearly be heard with e.g. the Audio Technica AT150MLX. Unfortunately almost all commercial phono stages do not allow to adjust this cartridge loading and even almost all DIY designs work with fixed loads.
This is a typical experience stemming from uncorrectly loaded moving magnets.
Infact, the brightness is easily adjustable with cartridge loading and MMs can sound overly bright if this is prefered.
This is not possible as the vinyl has to be mastered differently from the CD for technical reasons.
EDIT:
I hope you were using them with different tonearms of different equivalent mass (or at least using head shells with different masses) as otherwise one of the two cartridges was running under technically wrong conditions. Resonance frequency is the key here and it can completely ruin the sound if it is too low. That happened to me once and it is interesting to see how much influence this can have.
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I remember some 35 years ago I had an Ortofon FF15E, and it was a huge difference switching to MC10 (the red). Then I switched to MC10 Super (blue) and I hated it due to its harshness. Replaced to MC10 MkII (black) that was a bit blunt and lifeless. There are big differences even if the mechanical construction is identical.
I think the main difference between MM and MC is within the effective mass of the moving part. A piece of magnet or iron is heavier than a tiny coil, so the resonance might have more influence in the audible band.
I think the main difference between MM and MC is within the effective mass of the moving part. A piece of magnet or iron is heavier than a tiny coil, so the resonance might have more influence in the audible band.
I should qualify that I put the SPU as an outlier due to its age. It was there long before the current vogue for MC and as far as I can tell will hang on in forever.
I obviously was not clear enough. I meant that I was not looking for a 'romantic' sound that many wax lyrical about. Like CD I want as accurate a response as medium and budget allow. Koetsus are not on my wish list however romantic the notion of someone trawling the land for antique furtniture to cut up to make cartridge bodies sounds.h_a said:
But how much heavier? Enough to make a difference? I would have thought compliance made more of a difference than moving mass. Of course as h_a pointed out, the arm makes a big difference and you almost cannot split arm weight from cartridge design.
Interestingly this is not true (in terms of effective tip mass).
By far the largest contribution comes from the stylus tip, 2nd is the cantilever, only on 3rd place the magnet/coil comes.
If you're really interested in a technical discussion on this, I can provide an article on that topic.
Lowest effective tip mass cartridge ever (Technics EPC100C Mk4) was an MM.
And MCs tend to have a slight depression in the brightness range.
And MCs tend to have a slight depression in the brightness range.
In fact I was using several SME 3009 Series II (unimproved) with different headshells (light/heavy) and an odd assortment of different mass counterweights. Undoubtedly not the ideal arm for any cartridge these days, but sufficiently tunable to work well with a fairly wide range of cartridges. I found the ZU preferable except in the reproduction of female vocals where sibilance was an audible problem, the Grado just sounded so mellow - it tracked quite well, but overall was very laid back sounding. I should note that I have a Benz Ebony H HOMC which reminds me very much of the Grado on my one remaining SME 3009 Series II - which leaves me wondering whether both it and the Grado were greatly disadvantaged on that arm, although I did hear the Benz on a Schroeder arm using the same phono pre-amp and its character was fundamentally unaltered on the much better arm. I have since moved on to a Schick arm (wonderful) and the keeper-darren 3012 clone (at least very good) on my tables.. (SPU cartridges on both)
You mentioned that there are no really high end MM, but that's not strictly true; Grado makes several models (Statement and Reference series) that would be considered quite high end. Note that they are flux bridgers MI rather than moving magnet but otherwise...
Grado Labs - Statement Series Cartridges
Nagaoka also makes some great MM types, such as the fairly pricey MP-500. (I liked the MP200 and MP300 I've recommended to friends)
There must be a number of others such as Goldring with their 2xxx series..
Note I have not heard most of the cartridges listed above so ultimately don't know whether they get into good MC territory or not, the ones I've heard definitely do not.
In the case of MM the stylus assembly works as a 2-arm lever. One arm is the cantilever with the stylus at the end. In the middle there is the rubber damping element acting as a hinge. The other arm holds the magnet (or moving iron). I don't think the weight or effective mass of the latter is negligible, compared to that of the stylus.
The MC is a 1-arm lever, the coil is very close to the hinge, so its weight has much less effect. In this case the effective mass is mainly determined by the stylus indeed. Do I see it wrong?
The MC is a 1-arm lever, the coil is very close to the hinge, so its weight has much less effect. In this case the effective mass is mainly determined by the stylus indeed. Do I see it wrong?
Nagaoka is a moving iron cartridge! As are the Grados.
Different working principle and generally not sensitive to cartridge loading.
I'll dig out the effective tip mass article later.
Interesting. My trusty old Stanton 680 is MI and doesn't seem very sensitive to loading. Mainly just the very top end.
I noted in my post that the Grados are MI, but had forgotten that the Nagaoka is too. Likely then that most higher performance currently manufactured cartridges are not MM at all.
Note that many regard MM and MI as pretty much one and the same, although obviously the working principle is quite different.
The low output Grado statement series (0.5mV) is not very sensitive to loading but needs either a head amp or a transformer. The high output reference series (5mV) despite claims to the contrary seemed to me to be moderately sensitive to loading. (A lot of recipes for non standard loading on the net for some of these carts, always a red flag to me..)
Note that many regard MM and MI as pretty much one and the same, although obviously the working principle is quite different.
The low output Grado statement series (0.5mV) is not very sensitive to loading but needs either a head amp or a transformer. The high output reference series (5mV) despite claims to the contrary seemed to me to be moderately sensitive to loading. (A lot of recipes for non standard loading on the net for some of these carts, always a red flag to me..)
I owned a 680EE (?) for a while, it came on the TD-124/MKII I bought some years ago. Ended up getting a new stylus for it and upon not hearing any significant improvement promptly gave it away.
So we have several votes for MC being 'more detailed'. Has anyone ever tried to work out how to find a measurable parameter that could demonstrate that, or understand the mechanisms that would cause it?
I have not, but I will also state that the well engineered Ortofon mc cartridges I use cost an order of magnitude more than most of the cartridges discussed here; I suspect were equal care applied to the construction of an MI the results might very well be in the same league. Could well be the case with the top of the Grado statement range already.
SY has also mentioned in the past some very capable Panasonic/Technics strain gauge and I think some perhaps a magnetic type or two..
SY has also mentioned in the past some very capable Panasonic/Technics strain gauge and I think some perhaps a magnetic type or two..
If I won the lottery I would buy a soundsmith strain gauge cart just after the Aston Martin!
I agree my benz costs a lot more than almost any MM/MI out there, but a good chunk of that cost is the fancy bodywork. Another good chunk is that was what the market would stand!
I agree my benz costs a lot more than almost any MM/MI out there, but a good chunk of that cost is the fancy bodywork. Another good chunk is that was what the market would stand!
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