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In Reply to: RE: How Important is Stylus Shape? posted by flood2 on February 02, 2016 at 16:20:27
One of the advantages of a 12" tone arm is that the vta/sra is a bit less sensitive to record thicknesses.
Follow Ups:
So with all the information presented to you by myself and others, are you now convinced that the extended line contact designs have very real and significant advantages to the simpler designs?
The opinions you get from everyone will all be affected by how accurately they have their respective systems set and whether they compensate for each and every record. Those that do, will be able to give you a much more definitive answer about the clear superiority of the exotic cuts.
A standout benefit has to be the extended life of the stylus before audible degradation.
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
I have always understood that the closer is the stylus profile to the cutter the better is the theoretical reproduction. Also, the longer the profile, the longer lasting is the stylus.
My question was always about audibility.
What I find interesting therefore is the number of relatively expensive cartridges that have a less than optimum design by that standard. I mentioned the Clearaudio da Vinci at $5500. I might also have mentioned the Clearaudio Goldfinger Statement at $15,000 or the Dynavector XV-1t Phono Cartridge at $9450 or the Lyra Atlas at $12,000.
Your original post did not name those cartridges or provide the prices.
"..Also, the longer the profile, the longer lasting is the stylus."
Taking that last statement into account sort of makes your original question rather pointless don't you think?
The stylus is continuously wearing - the life of a stylus before harmonic distortion exceeds 3% at 15kHz (which is the metric that is used to define wear rate) is the point in time where distortion will become audible. Elliptical styli only give you about 200 hours or so until you reach that point, Shibata is about 400 hours or so and MicroLine is about 500 hours. The Shibata cut has two variants. The shorter one, which has a bearing radius of 50um, will last somewhat less than 400 hours. The 40um LC styli will be shorter again and I think 300 to 350 hours would be a reasonable expectation. However, stylus wear depends on how clean the records are and the groove modulation which affects the friction coefficient. Interestingly, the wear is greatest if you were to play the same record over and over during the tests compared to changing records. This would tend to confirm the groove modulation influence on wear.
At what point in the life of the stylus are you talking about sound quality? Once the simpler shape has worn, the more advanced shape will always sound better!
If you only take Time Zero as your reference point then for the Average User who only plays LPs, they probably wouldn't notice the difference.
As pointed out, the exotic shapes require scrupulous attention to alignment.
Secondly, the audibility is VERY obvious on inner grooves and errors in SRA are magnified by errors in HTA and antiskate.
Sibilance is a dead giveaway that you have a problem somewhere. The longer the contact line, the more precise you need to be.
I am using a DL304 at the moment which has the same tip as the S1. Based on information and photos from John, I am convinced that the tip is probably a form of hyperelliptical or short line contact stylus.
On my test records (as in "records I use to challenge the system setup" not actual "Test Records" of which I have several), the MicroLine still gives audibly superior imaging and clarity on the innermost grooves.
At the outer grooves, the DL304 *sounds* the most pleasing cartridge I have and from a technical point of view, the DL304 also has the best tracking ability (at 1.3g) giving a 2nd harmonic distortion component at -33dB (2.2%) relative to the fundamental on the +18dB test tone on the HFNRR test disc which is a 105 to 110um amplitude track. This gives absolute clarity on all material especially hot cuts....until you get to the inner grooves and the cartridge is let down by the stylus profile.
The Sound Quality is a combination of the suspension design, damping PLUS the tip capability. What I want is a MicroLine on the DL304 and THEN that cartridge would be The Best in my collection. I will settle for a Paratrace on it.
It's about your priorities and how accurate you are with your setup. I'm lucky to have access to very high accuracy equipment. I'm confident that I have taken my vinyl playback system about as far as it is possible to go within the limitations of the cartridge.
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
What type of styli do those expensive cartridge have? I would expect them all to have line contact styli. Are you suggesting that they have conical or elliptical styli instead of modern line contact styli?
On the other hand, most of us with experience know that cartridges in that price range are simply a rip-off. If you are concerned solely with sound quality, the best sound quality can be achieved for less than $1000. Check out Michael Fremer's cartridge drop-test comparison where he included his $9000 Ortofon Anna along with nine other cartridges all costing less than $1000. Only 12% of the 442 participants thought his $9000 Ortofon Anna sounded better than the cheaper cartridges. In other words, 88% of the listeners thought one of the cheaper cartridges sounded better than the $9000 Ortofon Anna.
Yes John, they all have line contact styli like the AT ART-7* and ART-9, the discussion of which gave rise to this thread.
What they DON'T have are microline, van den Hul, Shibata or other exotic shapes more nearly duplicating the cutter.
The Ortofon line seems to be an exception . . . and of course the van den Hul line, and others I'm sure.
I don't give much credence to the Fremer tests. Besides the digitizing (I can see a dispute coming on.) problem I'm guessing that most voters experience these files through their computer DAC and speakers. At the very best they copy and play them on systems of widely varying quality. Also the exotic shapes are more likely to reveal as superior on the inner tracks, though compromised by tracking error. I don't know if Fremer highlighted that aspect.
*By the way, I think it would be great if you did score an ART-7 and report its comparison to your Denon.
> I don't give much credence to the Fremer tests.
It's obvious you don't have much experience in digitizing vinyl; otherwise, you would place significant credence in Fremer's tests.
> Besides the digitizing (I can see a dispute coming on.) problem I'm guessing that most voters experience these files through their computer DAC and speakers.
I don't know how most people listened. I listened through a $3200 April Music Eximus DP1 DAC and Thiel CS3.7 speakers, and the Ortofon Anna was not as impressive as two or three of the other cartridges.
I owned a Dynavector XV-1 several years ago and I came to a similar conclusion.
I will probably buy an ART7 when I see a good price again. I just procrastinated too long when 2juki had them in stock. However, my Denon DL-S1 is a topnotch cartridge that I feel is every bit as good as most of the ultra expensive cartridges I've heard so far.
Best regards,
John Elison
...if the DL304 is anything to go by!
Apart from the Silver wire for the coils and the slight increase in nominal VTF to 1.3g, I'm not sure how different the damping configuration for the S1 is to the DL304. Certainly the stylus and cantilever look very similar and the bandwidth is virtually identical.
My sample of 304, despite the cantilever twist has the most remarkable tracking ability of any cartridge I have yet used. I initially set 1.3g and achieved 2.2% distortion on the +18dB HFNRR test tone which we know is > 100um. So I am more than happy at nominal 1.2g. I'm not even sure if the distortion I see on the waveforms weren't created by previous cartridges chewing up the groove!
That aside, tonally, Denon have sweetened the upper presence band by pulling back a tad at 10kHz (wrt 1kHz) and then allowing a gentle lift of about 2dB at 23kHz.
This is a very similar characteristic to what I measure with the Shure V15V and Stanton 881, 980LZS and CS100 - all cartridges that have a very subjectively pleasing sound to my ears.
Incidentally, I was just looking at the reference FR chart supplied with my 304 and was surprised to see that the reference load used was 1k ohm of all possible values they could have chosen to match a 20:1 or 15:1 SUT...or even 10:1.
I haven't gotten around to building a SUT yet so I experimented with different loads with the MC input stage on my phono preamp and ended up preferring 400 ohms (well that's what the phono stage labels it as!). 800 ohms added a certain "diffuse" quality to the HF range and slightly reduced definition. 400 ohms gives close to maximum output as you'd expect, and overall the best subjective performance. This DID surprise me a little in that I wouldn't have expected shifting the ultrasonic electrical resonance peak to have ANY discernible effect in the passband especially since the subjective changes would be mostly observed in the upper presence band. Unless I am hearing the effects of amplifier stability changes...
Just out of curiousity what was the value of the test load used in the chart supplied for your S1?
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
> Apart from the Silver wire for the coils and the slight increase in nominal VTF to 1.3g,
> I'm not sure how different the damping configuration for the S1 is to the DL304.
The coil wire for the DL-S1 appears to be gold when viewed under a microscope. Denon describes it as: "A newly developed ultra fine wire combining pure gold and 6N copper is used in the voltage generating coil." My guess is that it is gold plated copper wire but I suppose it could be a gold and copper alloy. It appeared like pure gold when I looked at it under a microscope.
Thanks for the info. I honestly don't know where I got the Silver reference from!
I wonder how much of the decision to change the wire is purely due to an expectation that the wire itself improved the sound or there was a subtle change in mass which was beneficial when combined with the damping system?
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
Hi Anthony,
The frequency response chart that came with my DL-S1 used a load of 47k-ohms and went from 1-kHz to 50-kHz. I couldn't find out whether the TRS-1005 was RIAA equalized or a constant velocity sweep. I have a feeling it might be a constant velocity sweep. The TRS-1007 is an RIAA test record with a 20-Hz to 20-kHz sweep.
Best regards,
John Elison
Hi John
Thanks for sending the scan. Here is the one for my DL304 - they look very similar if not identical at and below 20kHz. The S1 appears to have a slightly greater rise at 30kHz to 50kHz, but it could simply be that the test disc used for mine was worn more.
It is interesting that the measurements for yours were done with a 47k load and mine with a 1k load.
I am wondering if the measurements are being done using a SUT and they are specifying the matching load to achieve ~100ohms? 20:1 in your case and 10:1 in mine?
I think you are probably right about the test being constant velocity - the possible errors that might occur with the equalisation during cutting, not to mention distortion due to the cutting head having to be driven very hard would likely give rather inconsistent results when being used to verify the performance of the cartridge.
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
These charts tell very little about how a cartridge sounds....just advertising.
Yes,but John and I own the cartridges and compared them to others and find them both technically and sonically excellent. Charts like these go a long way to identifying possible anomalies that might contribute to tonal imbalances. For example the brightness often attributed to cartridges like the AT440ML is due to an engineered emphasis around 10 to 12kHz. You will note that these cartridges have a very slightly reduced output in that range.. As do the Shure cartridges and Stanton.
Anyway, the point was that we were trying to compare the reference load used to establish the performance relative to the specifications.
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
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