Matching Your Cartridge to Your Tonearm

[MylesBAstor]

Mark suggested this topic to me a couple of days ago and John raised the same idea in a different thread so thought I would just move it over here! Just like everything else in audio, simply using the Chinese menu method of choosing the best from Column A, the best from Column B, the best from Column C, etc. rarely works and more often than not is a formula for disaster. So how does one pick and match the right cartridge to the right arm and/or table?

[Johnny Vinyl]

It's one of many cartridges I had available for that particular review. This one was appropriate for the price category of the turntable.

Dre

I'd love to hear more on this subject. I've heard of people using cartridges 5/6/7/etc times the price of the turntable. That never made any sense to me, but I could be wrong. I've also heard of it in reverse, which also doesn't make sense to me...and I'm guilty of this, but hopefully will be able to correct it shortly. My priority was to get the TT I could be comfortable with for a long time coming, and next address the other pieces of the puzzle (cartridge, power supply, phonostage)

[MylesBAstor]

I'd love to hear more on this subject. I've heard of people using cartridges 5/6/7/etc times the price of the turntable. That never made any sense to me, but I could be wrong. I've also heard of it in reverse, which also doesn't make sense to me...and I'm guilty of this, but hopefully will be able to correct it shortly. My priority was to get the TT I could be comfortable with for a long time coming, and next address the other pieces of the puzzle (cartridge, power supply, phonostage)

John, if you don't mind, I'm going to spin this topic off into it's own thread. Mark raised suggested exactly the same idea a couple of days ago to me!

[Johnny Vinyl]

Be my guest, please. I think it would make for a wonderful topic.

[Dre_J]

I'd love to hear more on this subject. I've heard of people using cartridges 5/6/7/etc times the price of the turntable. That never made any sense to me, but I could be wrong. I've also heard of it in reverse, which also doesn't make sense to me...and I'm guilty of this, but hopefully will be able to correct it shortly. My priority was to get the TT I could be comfortable with for a long time coming, and next address the other pieces of the puzzle (cartridge, power supply, phonostage)

John,

For that particular situation you asked, a published review, I thought it more appropriate to run the turntable package with a cartridge that the average reader may use. That doesn't mean I wouldn't use a more (or Less) expensive cartridge on the 'table. I actually did use a more expensive cartridge for a portion of that review.

As you may have seen, when I review a turntable, I've made a point of having at least two (if not more) cartridges on the turntable in for review. At least one of the cartridges are what I'd consider "price appropriate" for the table from an economic perspective. This is more of a baseline than an absolute.

When I'm characterizing components beyond a published review, I'm more inclined to push boundaries towards (or beyond) the limit. In these cases, the cost of the components usually don't come into play because I'm more interested in optimizing performance. General matching issues like compliance and such are good starting points but I tend to be more concerned with practical application and performance (either objectively measured or subjectively observed).

There are many ground rules that I'm sure others will happily comment on and they can be different for each individual based on preference and experience. I say have at it since there is always more than one way to thread the needle.

Dre

[mep]

Here is a really good article to read from Galen Carol's website and it's a great place to start understanding the complexities involved in matching a cartridge to a particular arm:

http://www.gcaudio.com/resources/howtos/tonearmcartridge.html

[mep]

I have often wondered if all the woofer pumping you see on some systems playing vinyl is due to a cartridge/arm mismatch that has the resonant frequency in the wrong place. Your woofers aren't supposed to look like they are trying to jump out of your speakers not to mention the fact that all of that pumping is wasted energy.

The bottom line is that if you don't match your cartridge to your arm correctly, it can lead to serious unhappiness and wasted money.

[Johnny Vinyl]

Seeing as I'm a technological Neaderthal what would be a good match for my tonearm, which is a modified Oracle Pro-ject 9cc?

[mep]

Seeing as I'm a technological Neaderthal what would be a good match for my tonearm, which is a modified Oracle Pro-ject 9cc?

I believe the effective mass of your tonearm is 8.5G which is considered low mass. Low mass arms work best with medium to high compliance cartridges. Are you currently using the Dyna 20x2? If so, that would be considered a low compliance cartridge and not a good match for your arm.

[Johnny Vinyl]

I believe the effective mass of your tonearm is 8.5G which is considered low mass. Low mass arms work best with medium to high compliance cartridges. Are you currently using the Dyna 20x2? If so, that would be considered a low compliance cartridge and not a good match for your arm.

Yes, I am using that Dyna 20x2L and am in fact looking for a change this year. It's ok, but I'm not sold on it anyway. That Charisma MC-1 Myles reviewed has me interested.....thoughts or other possible recommendations?

[mep]

Johnny-Per the info on the manufacturer's website, I don't think the Charisma would be a good match for your arm:

http://www.charismaaudio.com/?page_id=3052

The compliance is too low for your arm and the manufacturer recommends a medium mass tonearm and yours is considered to be low mass. I hope the point to this thread is that there are some truly wonderful cartridges out there, but they may not all be wonderful in a given tonearm. I hope that Andre chimes in here to see if he agrees that your arm is a low mass arm and you need to be looking at cartridges that are high compliance. That's where I would be shopping if I was you. For instance, I think the Ortofon Quintet Black would possibly be a good match for your arm, but I don't know if your phono section has enough gain for the .3mV output. But I'm just using the Ortofon as an example of a cartridge that is better suited to your particular arm.

[Johnny Vinyl]

Thanks Mark for your input on this, I really appreciate it and would also certainly welcome Andre's thoughts on this. I think once I'm at the point of making a purchasing decision I'll start a thread and post all relevant data needed for possible cartridges to consider. Thanks again my friend!

[mep]

Johnny-You are welcome. I hope we can use the combined experience of people on this forum to help you with guidance on whether a particular cartridge you are interested in will mate correctly with your arm and your phono stage.

[MylesBAstor]

John,

For that particular situation you asked, a published review, I thought it more appropriate to run the turntable package with a cartridge that the average reader may use. That doesn't mean I wouldn't use a more (or Less) expensive cartridge on the 'table. I actually did use a more expensive cartridge for a portion of that review.

As you may have seen, when I review a turntable, I've made a point of having at least two (if not more) cartridges on the turntable in for review. At least one of the cartridges are what I'd consider "price appropriate" for the table from an economic perspective. This is more of a baseline than an absolute.

When I'm characterizing components beyond a published review, I'm more inclined to push boundaries towards (or beyond) the limit. In these cases, the cost of the components usually don't come into play because I'm more interested in optimizing performance. General matching issues like compliance and such are good starting points but I tend to be more concerned with practical application and performance (either objectively measured or subjectively observed).

There are many ground rules that I'm sure others will happily comment on and they can be different for each individual based on preference and experience. I say have at it since there is always more than one way to thread the needle.

Dre

[MylesBAstor]

I think another mismatch that I sometimes see is how the arm deals with the energy created during the playing of the record that may not even show up on all records. Some cartridges produce more energy than others and that energy gets dumped in part into the arm and the other into the vinyl. There's a point too where the better cartridges create too much energy for lesser arms to deal with creating all types of resonance and can also dynamics issues (those out-of-phase reflections mess with dynamics!)

For me, the biggest issue is tracking ability since you don't want to damage your LPs! And that's a lot of things but starts with finding the right resonance frequency. While there is some argument and slop here, I usually try for 8-12 Hz. I know Andre can add more here too!

In the end, one can never go wrong with a putting your money into the arm rather than vice versa.

[Dre_J]

Johnny-Per the info on the manufacturer's website, I don't think the Charisma would be a good match for your arm:

http://www.charismaaudio.com/?page_id=3052

The compliance is too low for your arm and the manufacturer recommends a medium mass tonearm and yours is considered to be low mass. I hope the point to this thread is that there are some truly wonderful cartridges out there, but they may not all be wonderful in a given tonearm. I hope that Andre chimes in here to see if he agrees that your arm is a low mass arm and you need to be looking at cartridges that are high compliance. That's where I would be shopping if I was you. For instance, I think the Ortofon Quintet Black would possibly be a good match for your arm, but I don't know if your phono section has enough gain for the .3mV output. But I'm just using the Ortofon as an example of a cartridge that is better suited to your particular arm.

Thanks Mark for your input on this, I really appreciate it and would also certainly welcome Andre's thoughts on this. I think once I'm at the point of making a purchasing decision I'll start a thread and post all relevant data needed for possible cartridges to consider. Thanks again my friend!

John, Based on some of your comments here:http://www.audionirvana.org/forum/th...?p=783#post783 and your equipment, the Quintet Black is worth a look/listen for you. It seems to be able to address one of the issues you mentioned wanting to address in your comments. At around $1000, it will leave you some funds to look at adding an external phonostage if desired.