The Cartridge, Arm and Turntable Situation: Part 2 (Vol.1, No.5: Winter 1977/78)

The Cartridge, Arm and Turntable Situation: Part 2 --- Breuer Dynamic Type SA ; Denon DL-103D ; Dynavector 20B ; EMT Model XSD 15 ; GAS 'Sleeping Beauty' Shibata ; Grace G-840F; Grado Signature Model 11 ; JVC MC-1 ; Linn-Sondek LP12 ; RAM 9201SG ; Thorens TD 126Mk IIB

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The laws of physics and of geometry are resoundingly vindicated by a new generation of Japanese moving-coil cartridges; the systems approach carries the day in turntable design; and Swiss precision yields a reference tonearm.

Our discussion of lateral and vertical tracking geometry in Part I, with the accompanying alignment instructions, turned out to be the hottest button we've pressed so far. The response has been overwhelmingly positive; re ports from those who performed the alignments range from simple affirmations of an audible improvement to delirious joy, with not a single dissenter in the lot. Of course, there are also those who flatly refuse to try the alignments because of a vested commercial or emotional interest in incorrect geometry; we're sure that Mother Nature feels deeply hurt by their snub.

Perhaps it should be reiterated to the tiny handful of practitioners who are still trying to argue with us about the theory behind the alignments that it's simply not negotiable; you might as well argue with the Pythagorean theorem. The 37-year-old mathematical analysis by Baerwald of the relationship between lateral tracking geometry and signal distortion is complete and impeccable, and the 15 to 17-year-old studies by Bauer, Cooper, and especially Woodward of the VTA (vertical tracking angle) problem are equally unexceptionable. (The man to watch in connection with the latest research on VTA is Jim White, a staff scientist at CBS Laboratories.) Against this long-standing background it's an incredibly silly suggestion that either Mitch Cotter or The Audio Critic made up these things out of whole cloth; why not accuse the Surgeon General of having invented lung cancer? Of course, as we point out elsewhere in this issue, neglect of the alignments creates a disastrous credibility gap when the resulting phono signal is used as reference material in listening tests.

A couple of follow-up notes on the alignments:

Many audio enthusiasts seem to be willing to pursue the lateral alignment to the nth degree, as it needs to be done only once, but then refuse to get involved in the vertical corrections from record to record because they're a pain in the posterior. Sorry, guys. No good. The lateral alignment alone is fine for mono but not for stereo. If that's all you've done so far, you haven't heard yet what we're talking about.

Until the whole industry adopts a VTA standard (see our comments further below), the price of totally unsmeared sound is eternal messing with the height of the rear pivot or the height of the record.

A number of people also had trouble with the eyeball determination of 0° tracking error at the two null points. This is admittedly not easy with cartridges that aren't perfectly rectangular; we're currently in the process of preparing considerably more detailed and novice-oriented instructions on the entire alignment procedure, scheduled for publication in our next issue (Number 6). Meanwhile we wish to emphasize that a/most correct alignment still sounds vastly superior to no alignment at all. It's the kind of thing that's worth doing even approximately, otherwise your cartridge and arm might be off by a mile. (This is not to be read as an endorsement of sloppiness. Right on the nose sounds best of all.)

Our approach to cartridge evaluation.

Since this is the first time that we're specifically reviewing phono cartridges, we must state right up front that we don't have a sonically correlatable laboratory measurement procedure for them yet, such as we use (and have full confidence in) for evaluating loudspeakers.

The nearest thing to a valid cartridge test we've seen so far, at least on the face of it, is the pulse-train method developed by a JVC re search team in Japan. This is a time-domain oriented test that requires elaborate and (for us) excessively costly data processing equipment for analyzing the results; there's hope, however, that this type of instrumentation will become affordable in the near future. The usual hi-fi magazine tests with the standard CBS, Shure, RCA and other test records (frequency response, separation, 1 kHz square wave, IM distortion vs. peak velocity, etc.) show quite poor correlation with what our ears tell us, except of course when the cartridge response isn't even in the ball park. We're most reluctant to get involved in any of these tests, unless further investigation raises our level of confidence in one or another of them. We're currently making a survey of all available test records, including some little-known ones.

The fact is, in any event, that a pickup system designed with a low enough motional impedance to track today's records without immediately audible difficulties will automatically have the bandwidth and high out-of band resonant frequency to make it look good on most standard steady state tests. In other words, the important differences among the better phono cartridges are not in the areas routinely measured.

Then where are those important differences? We believe they are in the ability of the stylus and the generator system to replicate the exact time relationships cut into the groove by the cutter head. In Part I we explained the time related aspects of the stylus/groove interface and how even a 5-micron anomaly in that unforgiving micro-world can create audible time smear. The electromechanical structures inherent in different pickup designs are prone to such slippage to very different degrees, and our experience has been that the audible performance of each design correlates quite neatly with the common-sense suitability of its structure to the preservation of time-domain integrity. The paradox, then, is that audible differences that are difficult or impossible to document with conventional laboratory tests are generally predictable by inspection! (Need less to say, just about anything in this world that can be heard can also be measured, but not necessarily with measurement techniques that are readily available.) Inspection turned out to be the most reasonable and effective elimination procedure in our attempt to find the best possible phono cartridge for the audio purist. Remember that auditioning a series of cartridges is unbelievably time consuming when both the lateral and vertical alignments are meticulously per formed (and, of course, any other way the listening tests would be a total waste of time).

If we attempted to listen to every cartridge whose maker raises his hand and shouts that he has the best, we'd be doing nothing else all year. The only solution is to look for prima facie attributes of correct design, from which perspective the cartridge universe suddenly shrinks to reasonable proportions and the listening can begin.

Fortunately, price differences can be ignored in this screening process. We firmly believe that the right cartridge for a $2000 home music system is the same as for a $20,000 system. The most that can be saved by skimping on the cartridge is a couple of hundred dollars.

It isn't worth it. Every serious audio enthusiast ought to have the world's best cartridge; it makes a bigger difference in the end result than any other component except the speaker and it's by far the least costly step toward perfection. The fact that hi-fi dealers use cheap cartridges as a promotional item ("'tell ya what I'm gonna do--I'll throw in the cartridge free of charge") shouldn't influence anyone who cares enough about audio to be reading this publication.

The VTA mess.

One criterion that immediately eliminates a large percentage of cartridges from serious consideration as state-of-the-art devices is vertical tracking angle compatibility.

A groove cut with a VTA of, for instance, 17° should be played back with a VTA of 17°.

If it's played back at 19° instead, it may sound perfectly fine to some people but it won't-it physically can't-sound as clear, focused, un colored and noise-free as it would if played back at 17°. This we have verified beyond all reasonable doubt and demonstrated to numerous professionals. Our mail, as we've al ready stated, also confirms it.

Now, all of today's records are cut within a VTA range of 3° or so, between a little over 15° and a little over 18°. As long as the built-in angle of the cartridge is anywhere close to that range, it's possible to match the VTA of the playback to the VTA of the cut, either by raising or lowering the rear pivot of the arm, or by raising or lowering the height of the record on the platter, or in extreme cases by shimming the cartridge at an angle in the headshell. But when the built-in angle of the cartridge is, say, 30°-forget it. The heel of the cartridge body will dig into the record long before the compensation is sufficient.

What cartridges are designed with vertical angles so large that compensation is impossible? Any number of ADC, Sonus, Grado, and Shure models, for openers. Plus lesser-known makes by the bushel. We hope we're making it clear that we aren't talking about anything terribly subtle or elusive. As a matter of fact, exact VTA measurements are still a subject of debate and continuing study among researchers. No, what we're dealing with here is gross deviation from the 15-plus to 18-plus bracket.

Even though tracking force and dynamic conditions have a decisive influence on the VTA assumed by the stylus during playback, in many cases it's quite apparent visually that there's something wrong, as soon as the cartridge is taken out of its box. For example, the unloaded stylus beam of the Dynavector 20B appears to be sticking out at a 45° angle. You'll never get to 18° from there unless you step on the cartridge (which may be what you'll feel like doing with it).

The only sensible way out of this mess is an official (meaning IEC and RIAA) recording standard defining a specific VTA with which all masters must be cut, within the smallest tolerance that can be realistically demanded.

Once the relatively tight little world of mastering studios has a decent standard, pickup manufacturers will either go along with it or not- but the serious audiophile will be able to align his phono setup permanently. If, however, the manufacturers are allowed to get into the debate about the need for a standard, we predict there will never be one.

In any event, on this one count alone, we can say to a lot of fancy cartridges what the kids chant on the playground: out goes Y-O-U.

Other eliminative considerations.

An immediate disqualification for acceptance as a SOTA contender is often provided right in the manufacturer's spec sheet. After specifying the inductance and DC resistance of the cartridge (per channel), the manufacturer tells you to load it with such and such resistance (usually 47K ohms) plus a recommended number of picofarads of capacitance, which includes all cables combined with the input capacitance of the phono preamp circuit.

A quick computation will often reveal that what the manufacturer is telling you in effect is that the output of his cartridge must pass through a high-Q resonant filter circuit before it becomes flat enough in amplitude to be listenable. Some times the resonant frequency of the circuit is well within the audio band and the Q is 2 or 3. Such a cartridge is, by definition, an electro mechanical device of very poor time-domain integrity; it will store and release energy in various ways that aren't reflected by its amplitude response-and it can't possibly sound as good as a cartridge that requires no such inductive-capacitive equalization.

Quite frankly, we're uncomfortable with the inductances of all so-called magnetic cartridges except the Grado series (where the inductance is limited to 55 millihenries in all models). This is the root of the whole input capacitance hysteria in preamplifier design.

Moving-coil cartridges are of course inherently low in inductance and outside this controversy.

The rubber-tire suspension of the stylus cantilever in nearly all conventional magnetic cartridges is another source of time-domain trouble. These designs are prone to elastomeric stability problems; some technologists call them gym-shoe cartridges. Twenty-six years ago, Rabinow and Codier (the former is the

"Rab" of Rabco) pointed out the existence of needle drag distortion. As the laws of phys ics haven't changed since then, it's still true that the stylus tip, in addition to its freedom to move laterally and vertically, also has an un desirable third degree of freedom that varies in extent according to the cartridge design: it tends to move longitudinally. (Le, it pumps back and forth in the direction where the stylus beam is pointing.) This causes an unmistakable time modulation of the signal, and rubber-tire suspensions are particularly susceptible to it.

What's more, the electrical generator con figuration of a conventional magnetic cartridge is sensitive to this kind of mechanical excitation and will produce an output, whereas a moving-coil generator, for example, is quite in sensitive. (See also Mitch Cotter's letter on page 23 of our Number 2 issue.) Here again, Grado cartridges have an advantage over other magnetics by using a stiff axial tieback (but Joe, you made the VTA too big!). It must also be pointed out that the built-in VTA value of a cartridge can shift around wildly as a result of gym-shoe compressions and deformations.

The moving-coil advantage.

When all is said and done, all inspections and screening desiderata sorted out, it would appear that the moving-coil designs are theoretically the most promising phono transducers.

The theory, as we shall see, is borne out by our listening tests; let's first consider, however, the obvious advantages.

The moving-coil (MC) type of generator is electromagnetically more linear, being less subject to hysteresis, than magnetic generator systems in which the field moves rather than the coil. At the same time, the MC type is in comparably lower in inductance and therefore insensitive to capacitive loading. The MC con figuration also possesses inherently better othogonality (i.e., true 45/45-degree response in stereo reproduction) and is inherently less sensitive to needle drag distortion, both by virtue of the stiff axial restraint the design lends itself to and because of the insensitivity of the generator to longitudinal forces. Perhaps most important of all, the MC principle permits inherently higher signal-to-noise ratios and therefore wider dynamic range.

This last advantage is frequently not understood by the typical audiophile, who figures that the higher the output of a cartridge the higher the achievable S/N ratio-and every body knows that MC cartridges have low out put. Wrong. MC cartridges have high power output-higher than conventional magnetics with equal stylus excitation-but it's achieved with high current rather than high voltage.

Power in this case is measured as output voltage squared divided by the cartridge impedance, and that figure for the GAS 'Sleeping Beauty' for example is 15 nano-watts at the 1 kHz reference level of 5 cm/sec, whereas for the Shure V-15 Type III as a typical comparison it's 3.6 nano-watts. And it's the power (i.e., energy) output of the cartridge that determines the S/N ratio, not the voltage output. Of course, delivering the power to the preamp input requires proper impedance matching, which is what transformers (and head amps, for that matter) are all about.

With the vertical and lateral tracking geometry fanatically aligned in each case, we have proved to our satisfaction that all of the better moving-coil cartridges (and especially those of the most recent generation) provide greater transparency, clearer focus, higher resolution of inner detail, less coloration, wider dynamic range, and lower modulation noise than the best conventional magnetics. The sound is just more real, more lifelike. More about that in the individual reviews.

A word about stylus tip geometry.

Let's get this straight once and for all. A long and narrow contact area between the stylus tip and the groove results in the most ac curate tracing, least distortion and lowest noise. It doesn't particularly matter whether this type of stylus is called Shibata, Pramanik, Stereohedron, Special Elliptical or whatever.

It varies slightly from maker to maker, but it's the kind to get. Making the contact area less long or less narrow is a step backward.

We don't feel obligated to dwell on the scientific rationale behind this, since every serious researcher in the world is of the same opinion. The occasional dissent is strictly from audio-freak quarters. We can only manage a sad smile when we run into a spherical-tip cultist; we try to explain to him the need for alignment-before-judgment if he's willing to listen. (See also the comments on page 3 of our Number 3 issue.)

The listening setup.

Each of the cartridges reviewed below was first listened to in a Supex SL-4 lightweight headshell plugged into a Grace G-840F arm mounted on a Linn-Sondek LPI12 turntable.

All alignments and adjustments were carried out in accordance with the instructions set forth in Part I. Contenders for top choice were transferred to a Breuer Dynamic Type 5A arm mounted on a Thorens 126 Mk II turn table, our current reference system (not to be interpreted as a once-and-for-all endorsement).

The cartridge in the latter system at any given moment became the reference (A) against which each newly tested cartridge (B) was judged.

The preamplifiers used were the Hegeman HPR/CU and Mark Levinson ML-1. Needless to say, only one preamp was used for both cartridges in any given A-B test. Moving-coil cartridges were played through the Verion Mark I transformer. The reference speaker/ amplifier system was the Beveridge 2SW.

The arms and turntables also reviewed below were tested with the same precepts in mind as discussed in some detail in Part I.

More finely tuned and revealing laboratory tests are now in the process of being evaluated; we have no more confidence in standard tests in this category than in the case of cartridges.

Breuer Dynamic 5A

Sumiko Incorporated, PO Box 5046, Berkeley, CA 94705. Breuer Dynamic Type 5A tonearm, $750. Fluid-damping option, Type 5C, $150. Tested #092, owned by The Audio Critic.

Since our wide-eyed preview of this bird of paradise in our Number 3 issue, we have bought one. If that makes us certifiably insane, so be it; to the rest of you crazies we must issue the warning that the price keeps rising with that of the Swiss franc against the declining dollar and that we therefore take no responsibility for the figures quoted above. What's more, the U.S.A. distributor isn't exactly passing the arm along without a profit. You've got to have religion to get involved in this one.

Imagine a Grace G-707 executed by Cartier--or maybe we should say by NASA-and you have a pretty good idea of what the Breuer Dynamic looks and feels like. Utterly simple, straightforward, functional, and unbelievably precise. The four-point gimbals suspension has no detectable play in the bearings-absolutely none-and at the same time the bearings seem to be totally frictionless.

We've never seen anything like it. No time smear from that source! The straight, aluminum arm tube is both rigid and dead. So is the perforated, nonremovable headshell. Tracking force and antiskating are adjusted by turning precision knurled knobs. The arm height is very precisely adjustable during play, a great ad vantage to the VTA-conscious. (Although it's advisable to tighten the main setscrew once the desired height is found.) The cueing mechanism is smooth as silk. And, hold your hat, the lateral geometry is almost correct; a perfectly aligned cartridge ends up pointing almost straight along the axis of the headshell. On the other hand, the mounting instructions are wrong with respect to overhang (H.G. Baerwald, where were you when Erhard Breuer needed you?).

In fact, the rest of our minor quibbles with this gorgeous piece of equipment also have to do with mounting. For one thing, the arm is held to the turntable by means of a mounting collar that must be affixed to the board with self-tapping wood screws, a primitive solution that the Japanese abandoned long ago. The arm rest must be mounted by force fit into a snug hole-ugh! And there's no pro vision for adjusting the azimuth of the cartridge, the assumption being that the arm board is in a plane absolutely parallel to the top of the platter and that the mounting collar is absolutely perpendicular to the arm board- a lot to take for granted.

But the sound, friends, the sound ... We hate to do this to you, but there's a slight improvement over any other arm we've ever tried, including a properly tickled Grace G-707.

There's just more ambience information reproduced, more inner detail, less "hair" on the sound. You could say that the window that stretches between the speakers got an extra wipe. All this without the fluid-damping option, which we haven't been able to get our hands on yet. (The damping of the main low-frequency resonance of a cartridge/arm system is a whole can of worms that we plan to open fearlessly in a future issue; manufacturers' literature and audio-salon chitchat on the subject are hopelessly simplistic.) The mass of the arm is low enough to work very well with modern cartridges having medium to high stylus compliance; whether the crazy-high compliances are successfully accommodated we don't know-and don't care.

Our current reference cartridge, the GAS 'Sleeping Beauty' Shibata, is very happy in the Breuer. In general we feel that the exact value of the system resonant frequency as determined by the arm mass and the stylus compliance is secondary in importance (as long as it isn't ridiculously high or low) to the numerous other performance criteria we've discussed.

Should you rush out and buy a Breuer Dynamic? Yes, if money is no object and your system is otherwise exactly as you want it to be. No, if your system needs any other kind of upgrading. The difference between the Breuer and, say, the Grace G-707 isn't going to change your life. But there is a difference.

Denon DL-103D

American Audioport, Inc., 1407 N. Providence Road, Columbia, MO 65201. Denon DL-103D moving-coil cartridge, 3267. Tested sample on loan from dealer.

This is the very latest of the outstanding MC's from Denon, one small but distinct step up in performance from the DL-103S that was until recently our reference cartridge. The cantilever has been changed and the motional impedance reduced, making the 103D perceptibly superior in transparency and definition of inner detail to the 103S. The very slight roughness or hardness on top that was the trade-off against the uncanny clarity of the 103S has also been ameliorated in the 103D;

however, the GAS 'Sleeping Beauty' Shibata is smoother and sweeter than either of the Denon’s and even a little clearer, so that the superb 103D still isn't our overall top choice of the new generation.

But it's close, damn close, and if for some special reason you can get one quickly and cheaply, grab it. It's a great cartridge.

Dynavector 20B

Onlife Research, Inc., Tokyo, Japan. Distributed in the U.S.A. by Audioanalyst, Inc., PO Box 262, Brookfield, CT 06804. Dynavector 20B moving-coil cartridge (with beryllium cantilever), $219. Tested #700799, on loan from distributor.

Any moving-coil cartridge with sufficient output voltage to require no matching trans former or head amp is intriguing, so we had to try this one. Unfortunately its VTA is so impossibly large as to make even an approximate alignment hopeless, and incorrectly aligned its sound is unbearably steely and irritating.

How the exact same structure would sound with the correct VTA we have no idea.

Some people claim to have tamed the steeliness by loading the cartridge down with a low value resistor; we don't believe that the electrical coupling is tight enough in the 20B for successful use of resistive damping, but the issue 1s in any case academic in view of the VTA disqualification.

EMT Model XSD 15

Gotham Audio Corporation, 741 Washington Street, New York, NY 10014. EMT Model XSD 15 moving coil cartridge, 3420. Tested #3768-14, owned by The Audio Critic.

Before the arrival of the latest generation of Japanese moving-coil cartridges (GAS 'Sleeping Beauty' Shibata, Denon DL-103D, JVC MC-1), this should have been by all rights everyone's reference cartridge, except for two serious drawbacks. One of these is that the XSD 15 is already encapsulated in its own sealed headshell, ready to be plugged into a standard arm. That means it can't be twisted to optimize the lateral geometry of incorrectly offset arms. The other problem is that it's avail able only with a 15-micron spherical stylus, so that it has distinct limitations in tracing ability.

If it could be extricated from the head shell (some experimenters have done it) and equipped with a Shibata tip (nobody to our knowledge has done it), it might even give the newer MC's with their lower motional impedances a run for their money, as it happens to be a superbly designed phono transducer with tremendous dynamic range capability.

Even as is, trimmed in to the best of our ability in an arm of near-correct geometry, it has a big, juicy, startlingly "present" sound with excellent bass-but with obvious high-frequency problems. You just can't get into those sharp corners with a fat ball-point.

We believe that EMT could make the best phono cartridge in the world if they weren't locked into this hidebound, reactionary format (probably purely for marketing reasons). These people know their basics. They're one of the two or three cartridge manufacturers, for exam ple, to talk about frequency intermodulation (FIM) distortion (they've even put it in their spec sheet with a percentage figure!), proving that they're well aware of the time-dispersive category of phono distortions. So you can bet that they didn't mess up the VTA, either; it's specified as 15° and we found nothing to contradict that spec.

But-in cartridges as in other audio equipment-SOTA means getting your whole act together, and that EMT hasn't done.

GAS 'Sleeping Beauty' Shibata

The Great American Sound Co., Inc., 20940 Lassen Street, Chatsworth, CA 91311. 'Sleeping Beauty') Shibata moving-coil cartridge, $240. Tested #7111002, on loan from manufacturer.

In Japan, the 'Sleeping Beauty' series of MC cartridges is known as the Coral 777 series, of which this is the latest and most sophisticated. Outwardly it looks exactly like the 'Sleeping Beauty' Super Elliptical (Coral 777EX), which is $40 cheaper, except that the box has a pink label and the "gland" from which the stylus protrudes is also pink. Internally, we're told, the GAS Shibata model is different from all its predecessors, with a beryllium copper spring suspension and, of course, a Shibata tip on the stylus. The stylus beam doesn't appear to be any smaller than that of the Super Elliptical, which is quite tiny.

Whatever its antecedents, this is the best phono cartridge known to us and the one we ended up with in our reference system. Through the Verion Mark I transformer (with P strap ping), its sound is so transparent, focused, detailed and free from background noise that it's scary. And there isn't a trace of roughness or hardness on top. We find this combination of clarity and silkiness unarguably right. What you hear is essentially the tape from which the record was cut. Of course, these judgments are predicated on meticulous alignment of both lateral and vertical tracking geometry.

The only cartridge we're aware of that may eventually surpass the 'Sleeping Beauty' Shibata is the JVC MC-1 (see review below) if JVC recognizes the need to fix that top end and does so with complete success. Meanwhile, this is The One-and who says we have a grudge against GAS? Grace G-840F Sumiko Incorporated, PO Box 5046, Berkeley, CA 94705. Grace 'Black Beauty' G-840FB tone arm, 3145.

One-year warranty; customer pays all freight. Tested sample on loan from manufacturer.

This is basically the same design as our special favorite among the more reasonably priced arms, the Grace G-707. The back of the G-840 is virtually indistinguishable from that of the G-707, including the excellent gimbals suspension; only the arm tube is heavier and is slightly curved to accommodate a removable headshell.

Except for its somewhat higher mass, the G-840 performs like the G-707, and of course changing cartridges in it is a whole lot more convenient. Don't use it with crazy-compliant cartridges, though; the higher mass will make the system resonance too low and you'll have an unstable setup on your hands, with the stylus pumping all over the place.

Other than that, the same very high recommendations apply as in the case of the G-707.

Grado Signature Model II

Joseph Grado Signature Products, 4614 Seventh Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11220. Signature Model II stereo/CD-4 cartridge, 8500. One-year warranty, customer pays all freight. Tested #1341, on loan from manufacturer.

A $500 phono cartridge? What on earth is in it in materials and labor? Joe Grado, when confronted with that kind of inquiry, is wont to reply: "I'm not selling materials and labor. I'm selling knowledge." A charming bit of Sicilian braggadocio, to which our Hungarian retort was: "It's either the world's best cartridge, Joe, or it's over priced. There's no third possibility." Admittedly, any Grado cartridge starts with several advantages over other straight magnetic (i.e., non-MC) designs. The 55 millihenry inductance (the same in all Grado models) makes preamp input capacitance irrelevant and, in conjunction with fairly high voltage output (2.7 mV in the case of the Sig nature II), assures very decent power output, comparable to that of a good MC in the mid range, though not at the higher frequencies.

Furthermore, the stylus-beam tieback used by Grado is much less susceptible to needle drag distortion than the '"gym-shoe" designs. And when it comes to sheer mechanics, ex-watch maker Grado is the acknowledged master.

Thus an all-out Grado cartridge, which the Signature II obviously is, should be the ultimate magnetic-which the Signature II probably is, except ....

First the good news. What's special about the Signature II is that the motional impedance has been reduced to an unbelievably low value, resulting in stupendous bandwidth and a high-frequency resonance so far up in the ultrasonic range as to be of no consequence whatsoever. This cartridge is fast! It reproduces the highs with a remarkably effortless quality and absolutely no grain, no grit, no shatter. Truly, it's like silk.

The trouble is-it's like black silk. Smooth but opaque. The remarkable see-through quality of the best moving-coil cartridges, that almost palpable presence of ambience details and inner textures, of separate musicians in a solid space, just isn't there. Compared to the GAS 'Sleeping Beauty' Shibata, for example, this difference in clarity is quite apparent and takes no "golden ear" to appreciate.

Which brings us to two important conclusions. One is that there must be a whole school of audio designers (and reviewers, for that matter) who bring out the champagne and celebrate when that silky quality without a trace of unpleasantness has been achieved.

They believe that's the end of the line. Why do they stop there? That's our second conclusion: because they've never lived with the real thing. Yes, they're familiar with the real thing live (Joe Grado is an operatic tenor of inter national class and certainly knows what live music sounds like) but they automatically discount it as an unattainable ideal. They've never been exposed at sufficient length to the real thing in a living room-say, a laterally and vertically aligned top-notch moving coil with something like the Beveridge at the other end.

Because if they listened to that, they'd know and wouldn't be satisfied with black-silk reproduction. (Cf. our comments on the Pyramid 'Metronome' in our last issue.) Why isn't the Signature II more trans parent? First of all, there's the VTA problem.

The angle is much too large. We went as far as we could to correct it, shimming the cartridge with its nose up until its tail was practically dragging on the record, but we aren't sure whether we managed to bring it in line 100%. It sounded a lot better that way, though, than with its top parallel to the record.

Then there's Grado's peculiar double-ball point stylus tip, which he considers superior to the Shibata type with its long and narrow con tact area; what geometrical theory is behind this preference escapes us. Lastly, we're dealing here with the inherent electromechanical limitations of a moving-field type of generator, especially with respect to freedom from time dispersive distortions. Maybe this is as good as a magnetic cartridge will ever get (VTA and stylus-tip problems aside).

To get back to where we came in: the Grado Signature II is overpriced, since it isn't the world's best cartridge. But it's a very good overpriced cartridge indeed.

JVC MC-1

JVC America Company, Division of US JVC Corp., 58-75 Queens Midtown Expressway, Maspeth, NY 11378. MC-1 direct-couple type moving-coil cartridge, price NA. Tested #07300017 (manufacturer's advance sample).

This came to us unexpectedly and very late in the course of our tests, so we're far from through with it yet, especially in view of its extraordinary promise. In some ways we find it the most logical and uncompromising solution to MC design we've seen, but we're hoping for a fully debugged version, which our advance sample quite possibly wasn't.

You must understand that JVC, completely aside from their commercialism in the medium-fi mass market, is an important center of basic research in phono technology. Some of the world's best minds on the subject work in their laboratories, and this new and different MC is a reflection of their latest thinking.

The coil of the JVC MC-1 is an almost microscopic, flat, chip-like affair that inter sects the stylus beam only about 1.75 mm behind the diamond, considerably closer to the deflected end of the cantilever than to the pivot. JVC calls the design direct-coupled, since the stylus tip and the coil move as virtually one and the same structure, and the entire electromechanical configuration of the cartridge has some distinct theoretical advantages, all related to the reduction of time dispersive distortions. The audible result appears to bear out the theory.

Never have we heard midrange clarity like this. The sonic intimacy and totally focused inner detail of the MC-1 are startling, surpassing in that respect even the GAS 'Sleeping Beauty' Shibata. This is SOTA performance- but there's a great big fly in the ointment.

The top end has a very irritating coloration, probably caused by a peak that may or may not be amenable to damping as the design under goes refinement. The machine-run curve that came with our sample actually showed a 4.5 dB peak at approximately 18 kHz; since we don't put much faith in test records and in amplitude response testing in general, and since the cartridge came in as late as it did, we don't feel ready to comment on JVC's apparent nonchalance about this.

Meanwhile, without recommending the JVC MC-1 as an immediate purchase, we strongly suggest that you check it out and listen to it if you have a chance. In our opinion, it's the wave of the future.

Linn-Sondek LP12

Audiophile Systems, 5750 Rymark Court, Indianapolis, IN 46250. Linn-Sondek LPI2 transcription turntable, 8549 (new price). Two-year warranty on mechanical components, one-year warranty on electrical components, customer pays all freight. Tested #016397, on loan from distributor.

Let's state at the outset what needs to be stated: The Linn-Sondek is a very Spartan, stripped-down, strictly utilitarian turntable of outstanding, but not unique, sonic performance, promoted both by its maker (Linn Products in Scotland) and by its U.S.A. distributor as though it were possessed of transcendental technology that puts it in a class by itself and justifies its otherwise incomprehensibly high price. (Even in Britain it sells for around two hundred pounds sterling; in the U.S.A. its price has just gone up $90.) The LPI12 is able to operate at 33-1/3 RPM only (you can't play on it those fantastic 45's from Mark Levinson and Japanese RCA, for example); it has no stroboscope and no speed adjustment (our sample tested out just a hair too slow); it has so little torque that you can't wipe your records on it; and its construction details, except for the unquestionably precision-made belt-drive mechanism and platter, are cheap and flimsy.

That said, we must admit that the Linn Sondek introduces no disturbances whatsoever of the stylus/groove interface in normal play back; the quality of reproduction obtainable with it is limited essentially by the cartridge/ arm combination rather than by the turntable itself.

Why? Not because of any kind of fanatical perfectionism in its execution, nor because belt drive is the cat's meow, but because the LP12 is designed as a system. Those Japanese direct-drive turntables that the Linn-Sondek is consistently beating in promotional A-B demonstrations are more or less nailed to their bases without any serious attempt at suspension design. The LP12, on the other hand, uses the tried and true method (introduced by Ed Villchur of Acoustic Research many, many years ago) of clamping the motor and suspending the rest of the system separately on soft springs, making particularly sure that the platter and the arm board bobble up and down in unison, as a single unit. This provides excellent isolation of the stylus/groove interface from both mechanical and airborne feedback, as well as from vibrations originating in the motor.

Thus the sonic superiority of the Linn-Sondek isn't due to some mystical advantage of belt drive over direct drive but rather to a simple system of isolation to which belt drive happens to lend itself easily and cheaply. For example, the Thorens TD 126 Mk II, which uses the same system of isolation, sounds every bit as good (yes, we've A-B-ed them) and is in other ways an incomparably more sophisticated and better finished turntable for about the same price. This is not to belittle the Linn-Sondek's beautifully made moving parts-but just re move its cheap fiberboard bottom cover and see how money is being saved on everything else under that chassis.

This general flimsiness has more than cosmetic significance; for example, the Linn Sondek is quite sensitive to subsonic excitation (heavy footsteps, truck in the driveway, etc.) because it's too light in construction, so that its overall mass is small enough to start oscillating at the fundamental suspension resonance with very little energy input. Further more, that fundamental resonance is a bit high in frequency (we'd say 6 or 7 Hz instead of 3 or 4, as it ought to be) and not too well damped (i.e., high Q). That means tone arms will be dancing out of the groove if their fundamental resonance with a particular cartridge is in that same vicinity (instead of at 13 Hz or so where it should ideally be). There's no need for a turntable to be nearly as hot and live sub-sonically as the LP 12, although that won't affect its sound when you're listening to it sitting still (unless your subwoofer goes down to 6 Hz).

Our conclusion: If you already own a Linn Sondek LP12, you won't improve the sound of your system by switching to another turntable, but if you're starting from scratch, we see no reason to buy one in preference, for example, to the Thorens TD 126 Mk II.

RAM 9210SG

RAM Audio Systems, Inc., 17 Jansen Street, Danbury, CT 06810. RAM 9210SG Semiconductor Phono Transducer System, $299. Tested #2215-270, on loan from manufacturer.

This is a strain-gauge pickup system, a whole different breed from phono transducers based on magnetic fields, whether moving or stationary. At our present level of understanding, we don't quite see how any strain-gauge design could possibly have the dynamic range of the best moving coils, nor are we particularly happy with the existing mechanical (i.e., nonelectrical) method of internally RIAA equalizing the inherent amplitude-sensitive response characteristic of strain-gauge devices.

The reason why we haven't gone into the whole question more deeply in our general discussion of cartridges is that, shortly after the conclusion of this group of tests and not in time for review in this issue, we received a sample of what is unquestionably an important breakthrough in strain-gauge pickup technology, namely the latest version of the Win Laboratories SDT-10 Type 11. Regardless of how we end up ranking this unit against the best MC's, it's obvious even on superficial examination that it obsoletes all previous strain-gauge designs. We want to study it carefully.

The RAM 9210SG unit, which some people were proclaiming a number of months ago as a SOTA contender (hence its inclusion here), is based on the old and widely whole sale-dumped Matsushita (Panasonic) EPC 451C strain-gauge cartridge, with electronics by RAM. Dr. Win's new transducer element is so far ahead of the Panasonic in all basic parameters that no amount of electronic wizardry by Dick Majestic can wring comparable performance from the latter.

So, rather than to tell you why we aren't particularly happy with the sound of this RAM system quite regardless of what else is avail able, we'll simplify matters by noting its "no- fault" obsolescence in view of the far more advanced Win at the same price. A full review of the latter is scheduled for our next issue.

Thorens TD 126 Mk IIB

Elpa Marketing Industries, Inc., Thorens and Atlantic Avenues, New Hyde Park, NY 11040. Thorens TD 126 Mk IIB Electronic turntable, $500 (without tonearm).

One-year warranty; customer pays all freight. Tested #21749, on loan from distributor.

This excellent Swiss belt-drive unit is currently our reference turntable, not because we think it's the best in the world (we don't know yet what is), but because we haven't found any thing equally convenient and flexible that per forms nearly as well. (All our comments here apply to the naked turntable; we haven't been able to get our hands on the Thorens Isotrack arm that comes with it in the C version.) The decisive factor in choosing this turn table in preference to all others known to us is its superb isolation. The method of suspension is essentially the old AR one, also used in the Linn-Sondek (see review above), but the fundamental resonance of the system is a few hertz lower in frequency, and also lower in Q, than that of the Linn. That, combined with a lot more mass, makes the system considerably more impervious to subsonic quaking, and the isolation from mechanical and airborne feed back in the audio range is every bit as good, if not better. So are the sonic results. The TD 126 Mk II appears to do nothing to the stylus/ groove interface and therefore nothing to the sound. Compare it with something like the Luxman PD-121 and you'll be amazed at the difference good isolation can make.

It's also interesting how much more turn table Thorens gives you for your money than Linn. The TD 126 Mk II has a very similar belt drive, but the motor is electronically regulated, so that speed changes are no problem at all.

Push buttons select 33 1/3, 45 or 78 RPM (when did you last see a three-speed turntable of audio purist caliber?) and fine-control of each speed is possible via a knurled knob and illuminated stroboscope. Torque there isn't much of (though more than in the case of the Linn-Sondek), but that's belt drive for you.

The details, finish and general feel of the turn table are very nice. On the other hand, it could be argued that the platter and drive mechanism of the Linn are a little more precisely made; the audible end result, however, is the same.

And you don't have to tiptoe around the Thorens, even when the cartridge/arm resonance happens to be too low. It's an easy and pleasant piece of equipment to use; even changing the tone-arm board is a piece of cake.

And where would you rather order a piece of cake, Switzerland or Scotland?

Recommendations

The following choices reflect the findings of both Part I and Part II. Remember, though, that there's more coming in the next few issues.

Best phono cartridge tested so far, regardless of price: GAS 'Sleeping Beauty' Shibata.

Best cartridge per dollar: forget it (you can afford the best-at least in cartridges).

Best tone arm tested so far, regardless of price: Breuer Dynamic Type 5A.

Close to the best at a much lower price: Grace G-707.

Best turntable tested so far, regardless of price: Thorens TD 126 Mk IIB.

Best turntable per dollar: Kenwood KD-500.

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[adapted from TAC]

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Also see:

Preamplifiers Revisited (No, Not Again!)

The Present State of CD Player Technology: Who Is Doing It Right? By David A. Rich, Ph.D. Senior VLSI Design Engineer, TLSI, Inc. Adjunct Assistant Professor, Polytechnic University

Various audio and high-fidelity magazines