Cartridge comparison - Please have a listen

Hi guys,

Peter has kindly borrowed me a few cartridges to do some testing and comparisons and I would welcome your feedback... If you could rate them for sound quality that would be great, please listen for distortion in particular. 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/x7mihreeq168bvf/CART%20TEST%20AAC.m4a?dl=0

They are all playing the same record one after the other with correctly adjusted tracking force.

I will let you know which ones are which when I get some feedback :-) 

Thanks,

Lee

 

Hi Lee,

I listened last night via my iPad and H6's and found it quite difficult. There were some subtle differences but I want to listen again from home and with better speakers. I'll get back to you.

Dave

Hi Dave,

Thanks for that. The differences are quite evident on my Pentas so hopefully you should be able to hear them on you big system, funnily enough a friend of mine couldn't hear much difference on his H6s either...

Lee

Link to the WAV version (around 25mb) - http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/496945/CART%20TEST.wav

Lee

 

Fourth and final one is by far the best to me.

 

1 - Good tonal balance but occasional breakup (doesn't sound like a stylus issue though, could be an issue with the capture?) - Not so good at tracking HF off to the sides. Slightly flatter presentation than 4.

2 - Bad breakup, don't even bother with this one

3 - Good tracking but weird tonal balance - very bulky across the lower mids and kind of irritating, un-musical bass. High output though.

4 - Lower output than the others I felt, but very natural and relaxed sound overall. Excellent HF extension.

 

Hope this helps. Listening on studio monitors here so about as revealing as it's going to get!

That's great. Thanks for the input :-)

I will reveal what carts they all are in good time.

Lee

Anyone else willing to give me their opinion? It will really help and I promise to write an article on here of my findings once I have some more data.

Lee

 

I did a first pass using my computer and speakers. I couldn't tell a significant difference between the four samples. For me it is hard to jump between samples and tell if, or how, different they are. I tried to compare shorter segment samples between the four. Jumping back and forth between the beginning seconds of the first and fourth samples though didn't reveal anything different to my aging ears.

-sonavor

Thanks Sonavor,

I can't really hear a difference through my computer speakers either but the sound when played back through my Beomaster8000 and Pentas is quite different. Some of the carts seem to have distortion in the upper mid frequencies.

Lee

I separated the four samples into individual tracks so I could switch between them quicker in iTunes while listening to them through my office stereo system (Yamaha C85 preamp, Yamaha MX1000 power amp, Yamaha NS-500M speakers) and still can't tell much difference.  To my ears Track Number 2 sounds more different than the other three. Tracks 1, 3 and 4 sound really close to me with Track 3 maybe sounding best (although I am afraid I am not familiar with the track).  I wouldn't mind hearing a 1:15 minute sample from each cartridge of something more familiar like Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto #1 with Van Cliburn or Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade Track 1 (Scheherazade, Op. 35 / The Sea and Sinbad's Ship).  Or maybe the track 14 or 15 of Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition with Fritz Reiner and The Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

-sonavor

Couldn't really tell as I listened on my work laptop with Form 2 headphones plugged in - if anything number 4 sounded good but all had some distortion and a bit harsh - most likely the laptop - will try on my mac and through pentas later.

I recently tried some other makes of cartridge in a Sansui deck, the best one was a Shure M75 and the worst a brand new Rega Carbon (supposedly a great cartridge and a bargain according to what hifi) - aim was to see if it was worth paying the extra for re-tipping on my MMC20EN - conclusion I reached was definitely worth it)

Interested to know if it was a radial or parallel tracking deck used.

 

 

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the feedback so far, I have made a new file that will hopefully more accurately reflect the differences in sound. The last file was first recorded to a Chrome cassette in my Beocord 9000 and then digitised. This file has been recorded directly to the computer.

I have uploaded it as a FLAC file as I understand this will sound as good as it gets.

Dropbox link-

https://www.dropbox.com/s/l6tyyizlwp04c60/Rolling%20Stones%20Cart%20Test.flac?dl=0

For non dropbox users - 

http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/497158/Rolling%20Stones%20Cart%20Test.flac

I will make a Classical one Sonavor but I'm not sure I have those LPs. I will however find something that I'm sure you will be familiar with.

Andrew the deck is a linear tracking BG8000. The recording is the last track on the LP in both instances. 

Thanks again!

Lee

 

 

---Deleted Duplicate Post---

I like this latest sampling better but it hasn't made it any easier to distinguish the difference between samples. With this set of samples I still lean towards Track 3 as the one I prefer. The other tracks sound good too although Track 2 has a weird spot where it jumps forward in the track playback. To help confuse things more I put on a new, 180 gram reissue of the track through my Beogram 4000 (with an MMC-20CL) and a SACD version of the track from a Yamaha 2300 SACD player. Both sounded good of course but I think it would be hard for me to pick out the tracks from a blind listening test. I am going to route the samples through one more set of speakers, a pair of Yamaha NS-2000 monitors. 

-sonavor

I'll check the jump in the track. Maybe a recording issue on the PC. I did notice it slow down at one point so that's probably it.

I will make a classical one tomorrow. Beethovens 7th any good?

Lee

(Kate Bush sample)

For me it is track 4, then 1, 3 and lastly 2. 

Most of all it reminds me how good "digital" sounds if I compare the samples with the same song on (any) streaming service  ;-). 

Peter

Beethoven's 7th - Presto would be good I think.

The Rolling Stones track was good though. It has a good mixture of chorus through the Jagger vocal and guitar start to the band kicking in so a nice variation of things to latch on to and try to compare. I tried to focus in on the French horn and the sharpness of the little percussion parts to see if they would help me with the comparison but the more I listened, the harder it got. The sound samples did sound best this evening on my NS-2000 speakers. My computer has an Audigy sound card and I ran the output to a Yamaha CX2 preamp and on to an MX1000 power amp. The tracks sound so close but I still lean towards the last two tracks. Do you notice much difference in them? 

-sonavor

Put us out of our misery - which was which!!!?

Ok :-) here we go....

The first one was Peters original MMC20CL (well used).

The second one was my NOS MMC20CL from Axel (I until recently believed that Axel had rebuilt this one but it turns out its brand new so I suspect the suspension has gone stiff).

The third was a Shibata on aluminium cantilever rebuilt MMC20S by Axel.

And the 4th was a SMMC20EN by sound-smith.

I'm really not happy with my 20CL and it seems that sounded the worst to everyone else too. I have been in touch with Axel who has now built me one of his new top of the line naked shibata on boron 20CL carts which I expect to arrive later this week.

I will write a detailed report on all these cartridges including microscopic images of all the styli and audio measurements once I receive the new cart from Germany.

Id like to say a big thank you to Peter for kindly borrowing a selection of his cartridges to me for testing.

Stay tuned.

Lee

They all sounded similar to me with the first one being a little brighter.  

I would say

1st - best

4th - 2nd

3rd - third place

2nd - last.

But none sounded horrible.   I used my swans 2.1 near field monitors on my computer.  

Oh I also put them in audacity so you can see a visual on each cart.

My cartridge (number 2) in particular didn't sound great.

I made a bit of a mistake recording the records to tape before digitising them. This masked some of the obvious harshness and miss tracking that could be heard when played "live"

Sat here listening to them I would put them 1,3,4 and then a big gap 2.

Yea unless you have a Nakamichi cassette deck that is calibrated, the tape would have to cause a little loss, depending on how you set the bias.   My tapes sound exactly like the record but many tape recorders mute the high end some (not due to dolby) but do to over bias for the tape being used.

You can get a gizmo for like 30.00 that will allow you to pipe directly from your turntable into a USB port on the computer.   It works pretty good, probably better than from record ==> Tape ==> computer

Miss tracking?   You have a tangential TT, I can see maybe a worn needle riding too deep in the grooves or bad suspension.

 

 

It was recorded on a Beocord 9000 and I ran tape calibration for the Chrome tape so it should sound as good as possible but tapes even on a Nakamichi don't sound quite as good as the original, you are pretty limited with a tape speed of only 1 7/8 ips, it is always a compromise. And each tape manufacturer adds their own 'colour'.

All styli will miss-track at some level, (even the very best cartridges costing thousands) especially with very high amplitude sounds and records recorded 'too hot' it all depends on how well the engineer understands the limits of vinyl I guess and the compliance of each individual cartridge. The tangential method used on the beograms is good but far from perfect, the stylus is always slightly out of alignment (causing slight phasing issues) and is constantly corrected, then out again, and corrected.... and so on and so on. I prefer tangentials for the lack of tracking error but they are far from perfect. 

The second file I recorded was fed directly into my computers soundcard via the Beomaster 8000 so doesn't have any of the tape artefacts added.

Lee 

If you have a tape deck in which you can manually adjust bias and also azimuth the tape is very very close to original much more so than tape decks without this feature.    A/B test on my NAK are much closer to sounding the same as source than your 4 carts were in sounding the same.

But direct feed to computer is the way to go.    I think you know something is up with that one cartridge though.   Can't beat the live source.