Moving-coil cartridges
"Andrew Haley" wrote in message
...
I know that moving-coil cartridges are much loved by the hi-fi press
and by many audiophiles. I also know that there are many claims about
the performance of cartridges, but there doesn't seem to be much in
the way of measurements available.
There have been measurements of them in the past. They generally don't
measure out to be very accurate. But playing vinyl in general is not usually
about accuracy.
Objectively, vinyl playback is very inaccurate, something that just about
everybody was aware of in the day. If you ever heard the HS master tapes
that LPs were made from, you knew that putting music on vinyl was a step
backward from accuracy, musicality, enjoyability, you name it.
The #1 problem in cartridge design is minimizing moving mass while
providing appropriate durability and rigidity.
So, I'm wondering if there is any actual technical information
available that compares moving-coil and other designs.
The challenge has always been to make a couple of coils of wire less massy
than an iron reluctor or a small magnet.
I've done a
web search and while opinions are plentiful, facts are pretty thin on
the ground. It's fair enough to prefer one cartridge over another,
but are any of the new moving-coil cartridges objectively more
accurate than, say, a V15?
Not that I'm aware of.
Or does no-one bother actually measuring any more?
It's very easy to do with a computer and a good test record. I would have
done it long ago for some MC cartridges but I don't have access to any.
|