On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 08:06:08 +0000, Ian Bell wrote:


AZ Nomad wrote:

On Thu, 16 Mar 2006 21:21:59 +0000, Ian Bell

I am surprised there has been so little development of cartridges beyond
the two basic magnetic types and good old ceramic. What about an optical
cartridge for example?

Are you talking about bouncing a laser off the record groove? It was a
failu it was too expensive and worked worse than traditional methods as
it was best at reading the crud in the groove instead of just pushing it
aside.

No I was thinking more of a small low mass pair of mirrors in place of the
MM for example with perhaps fibre optics to carry the data - no hum issues
for a start.

No. You'd just have a 2lb brick with the electronics hanging off your
tonearm. :-)
Sure you could do better with today's microelectronics, but making custom
integrated circuits isn't a cheap endevor and I doubt any cartridge makers
forsee enough profits to cover development costs.

Besides, would a mirror really be lighter than a coil? If you wanted to
improve the noise problem, move the preamp into the turntable. The biggest
noise problem has always been the cables.