[Audio Empire]

On Thu, 6 Oct 2011 09:39:38 -0700, Scott wrote
(in article ):
On Oct 6, 7:23*am, bob wrote:
On Oct 5, 8:19*pm, Audio Empire wrote:

snip

Scott's proposition is that there's no problem because you can trust a
reliable dealer to steer you in the right direction. Given the state
of the high-end business, I think that is woefully naive.

My proposition is that the alleged arm/cartridge resonance crisis is a
nonevent. So far no one who claims it is a genuine concern has been
able to cite one incident.

I don't think that's the point. We seem to have gotten-off on a tangent about
dealers here. I get to "test" a lot of cartridges and I always have, it
seems, three or four laying around. They all require different masses to give
them the correct resonance of 8-12 Hz or to keep them from having muddy bass
(with a resonance in the 20 Hz range). Neither arms or cartridges come with
any compatibility information. Certainly, if you know what you are doing, and
have the tools, it's not really that big of a deal to add mass (I use .177
caliber pellet gun pellets and double sided tape), but I know HOW to do this
and have a both a CBS Labs, an Orion, and a Hi-Fi News test record and an HP
audio voltmeter to help me determine the proper mass to add. But how many
audiophiles have these tools? How many no how to use them? How many know that
there might be a need to use them at all?


More likely, the lack of this skill set is due to the proliferation of
digital sources over the last 25 years having supplanted the need for audio
sales and technical personnel to know about turntables and the other minutia
of vinyl playback. Those who DID know how to do this correctly are now
approaching retirement age and only a few younger people have undertaken to
learn it.

The impression I get is that much if not most dealer knowledge comes
from the distributors they deal with. So this problem might be dealt
with if sales reps are telling dealers, "These are the cartridges that
mate well with our turntables." But I don't know whether that's
happening either.


Indeed you don't know. But what would you do? Offer some basic
information or wait for the returns?
The thing is such mismatches have consequences so there is plenty
incentive to figure this stuff out if you are a dealer who sells these
things and/or does TT set up.

By the way Cartridge/turntable compatatbility is an entirely different
issue and can come up with the some of Grado cartridges. All the
dealers I have ever spoken with who carry the Grados are well aware of
these particular issues. This however is one mismatch that I have seen
pop up for folks who bought without the dealer.


What issue do you refer to? I use a Grado Reference Master1 currently and
find it quite neutral sounding with really low distortion and excellent
tracking.