[Harry Lavo]

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"Harry Lavo" wrote in message
...

Dick, for all that, I don't think we are disagreeing.

Interesting claim, given that you essentially repeat the same pack of
errors
that caused Dick's initial response.

A fast rise time,
coupled with a single overshoot will also certainly result in an optimum
or
near-optimum transient response in your terms.

Not really. A critically damped system has a certain well-defined amount
of
overshoot. The phrase "single overshoot" allows a wide range of
overshooting, so it is vague and therefore meaningless.

Again, debating points. In reality, most cartridges that have a single
overshoot have behave similarly. If the overshoot is very large it almost
always is followed by secondary ringing, and if it is small or non-existant
the cartridge will be slow in settling and sound dull. This is practical
experience speaking, from back in the day when these cartridge measurements
were made and widely available, and I had the money and interest to listen
to a wide range of cartridges. Yes, there a technical caveats, but it is
nit-picking.

And obviously it depends on
the input signal from the test record.

However, this disagrees with your previous claim that this test is easy to
do and meaningful.


But it wasn't difficult to get
useful square wave input off test records back in the day.

Again, "useful" = vague. The square wave responses were useful as fluff
for
advertising and not much else. Flat, smooth frequency response is of the
essence.

And you don't think test records that also included frequency response tests
from 20hz to 20khz had flat, smooth response?

..and they were designed specifically for this purpose.

This time the antecedent is vague - was it the test records or the
cartridges that were designed to give good square wave response for
publication?

See my above comment. You and Dick want to score points...I want to tell
people something about how to translate the most common cartridge
measurement technique into anticipated sound.

In either case, the answer should be no. Square wave response is one of
the
more meaningless tests around because it confounds flat frequency response
and phase response. Flat frequency response is of the essence, while phase
response above 1 KHz applied equally to both channels has no audible
significance unless very, very extreme.

It also tells you alot about damping and mechanical reaction of the
cartridge/stylus, which is critical to pickups.