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In Reply to: RE: How Important is Stylus Shape? posted by Mel on February 03, 2016 at 07:21:15
> 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
Follow Ups:
...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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