Every cartridge has an expression that can only be found through experimentation via different tonearms and or different configurations ie., distribution of mass in a tonearm. If you're basically a bit of a tightwad like myself, many of the tonearms you may have seen at Axpona are way more expensive than seems reasonable or in many cases even possible and it gets almost depressing. Is hifi really only a game for the rich?
This is where 1970's tonearms come into play. Both of the arms pictured above are giant killers, even today. To the left is an Audio Craft AC-3000 with my current favorite of 8 different arm tubes. This particular one has an ever changing taper that moves cartridge resonance through the arm to the pivot like a diode and in the pivot is silicon oil that damps the entire arm, and is fully adjustable. This is a uni-pivot, some will argue the best uni-pivot. Certainly the only universal tonearm that can be used to find any cartridges true expression. You can buy these arms for $600.00+ and additional arm tubes for around $150+.
The other black tonearm pictured is a Fidelity Research FX64 silver wired arm. It is a medium to high mass arm available for around a grand. It too is a giant killer, as is the anniversary silver coil FR7 cartridge by the same company.
That's what I like, giant killers. I can live with 90% of a 10,000.00+ cartridge and would rather buy more vinyl. That brings me to todays report of a recent discovery...
There is a vintage cartridge out there that is built different than any other called DECA LONDON GOLD or DECA MK5 that is presently making my Fidelity Research sound inferior on every level. You can find these cartridges for $600+
As I told my listening buddies, with two tonearms it will inevitably lead to cartridge wars... at least at first until we hit the point of rapidly diminishing returns. So we will see as time goes on just how much better some high dollar stuff actually is when everything is perfectly set up. I'll be using our Picoscope with real time distortion analyzer to fine tune all the cartridge adjustment points.
I have always been happy with my vinyl rig running flagship arms and carts from the 1970's until the performance of today's high end DACs started to get sonically competitive. Presently I don't see any danger of that happening again. Right now the vinyl is so far in the lead it's almost lapping the digital largely in part due to this DECA cartridge and AC-3000 tonearm setup.
I don't see myself ever getting better tonearms unless I want to drop 20K. The Audio Craft is Japan at it's very best in vinyls heyday and I don't know of anything like it today in the blue collar income range, and even high dollar tonearms don's seem to come with 8 possible arm tubes covering every possible mass and resonance requirement. Some with removable headshells and some with fixed. Exotic arm tubes is where the magic lies in any hi end tonearm. Yes, the berrings need to be good, but the game is all in the arm tube.
I tried the DECA cartridge in a high mass arm configuration and now in a relatively low mass and am zeroing in on what IT wants to please me, but so far in both it has had me at full attention.
When you get wet panties over a 10~20K cartridge or even a 2.5K cartridge just remember this little DECA the way it is designed, no other cartridge can be as fast. On several occasions already the beggining of songs have scared the crap out of me and at a low listening volume just because of the dynamic that comes from such a black background. Worth doing some research, plus I understand there will be new DECA cartridges available soon, the top of the line being around 8K.
Happy listening : )
Steve
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Hate spending 3~10K for a cartridge? (Read 663 times)
