New page on LP cartridge measurements, etc
 

Just posting to let people know that audiomisc.co.uk now includes a web
version of the 4th article in my recent HFN series on LP. This one provides
measured results for the old Shure V15/III and compares it with some modern
MM carts. Also has some close up photos of each stylus, etc.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Change 'noise' to 'jcgl' if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

New page on LP cartridge measurements, etc
 

Jim Lesurf wrote:
Just posting to let people know that audiomisc.co.uk now includes a web
version of the 4th article in my recent HFN series on LP. This one provides
measured results for the old Shure V15/III and compares it with some modern
MM carts. Also has some close up photos of each stylus, etc.

Slainte,

Jim


Jim, it looks, given the two frequency responses, as if the Rega Exact
and the Ortofon M2 Black will sound very different. Did you do any
listening tests as part of this - even if just for interest?

I would expect the two Shures to sound very similar.

d

New page on LP cartridge measurements, etc
 

In article , Don
Pearce
wrote:
Jim Lesurf wrote:
Just posting to let people know that audiomisc.co.uk now includes a
web version of the 4th article in my recent HFN series on LP.
[snip]

Jim, it looks, given the two frequency responses, as if the Rega Exact
and the Ortofon M2 Black will sound very different. Did you do any
listening tests as part of this - even if just for interest?

I would expect the two Shures to sound very similar.

I didn't do any systematic listening comparisons as I didn't have time and
didn't want to include my personal subjective impressions in the article.
Big enough without that! :-)

However I did spend time comparing the Shures. As you might expect, I found
the V15 HE and MR essentially indistinguishable once set up well. The 97xE
I did feel sounded a little different, but wasn't able to decide. Put it
down provisionally to the lousy channel seperation of the 97xE. Must admit
I was shocked this was so poor - and well below the spec quoted in the
leaflet. I ended up trying two 97's in case the first was faulty, but they
gave much the same results, despite experimenting with tracking angles,
etc.

Also surprised by the stark differences shown by the photos of the stylus
of the 97xE compared with the old HE and MR. Chalk and cheese.

I did listen briefly to the Ortophon and Rega. Not long enough to really
say. I'd probably be happy with the Ortophon, but would alter the loading
to get a response nearer to the Shures if I wanted to change to it. I would
recommend the M2 Black as a good MM for people who don't have access to the
old V15. My thought before doing the comparisons was that I'd prefer the
97xE if I needed to replace the V15. But given the results I'd now either
go for the M2 Black or see if I could get Expert Stylus to retip a V15
stylus.

FWIW one 'feature' I didn't comment on in the mag is that if you look at
the responses you can see a 'kink' in most of them. This seems to depend on
the headshell and the level of the cartridge's effective compliance, etc.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Change 'noise' to 'jcgl' if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

New page on LP cartridge measurements, etc
 

Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , Don
Pearce
wrote:
Jim Lesurf wrote:
Just posting to let people know that audiomisc.co.uk now includes a
web version of the 4th article in my recent HFN series on LP.
[snip]

Jim, it looks, given the two frequency responses, as if the Rega Exact
and the Ortofon M2 Black will sound very different. Did you do any
listening tests as part of this - even if just for interest?

I would expect the two Shures to sound very similar.

I didn't do any systematic listening comparisons as I didn't have time and
didn't want to include my personal subjective impressions in the article.
Big enough without that! :-)

However I did spend time comparing the Shures. As you might expect, I found
the V15 HE and MR essentially indistinguishable once set up well. The 97xE
I did feel sounded a little different, but wasn't able to decide. Put it
down provisionally to the lousy channel seperation of the 97xE. Must admit
I was shocked this was so poor - and well below the spec quoted in the
leaflet. I ended up trying two 97's in case the first was faulty, but they
gave much the same results, despite experimenting with tracking angles,
etc.


Odd that - I would expect crosstalk performance to depend mostly on the
accuracy of the right angle between the two coils with some secondary
effects from the cantilever mounting. No real reason for either of those
to be so poor.

Also surprised by the stark differences shown by the photos of the stylus
of the 97xE compared with the old HE and MR. Chalk and cheese.


I spy cost-cutting.

I did listen briefly to the Ortophon and Rega. Not long enough to really
say. I'd probably be happy with the Ortophon, but would alter the loading
to get a response nearer to the Shures if I wanted to change to it. I would
recommend the M2 Black as a good MM for people who don't have access to the
old V15. My thought before doing the comparisons was that I'd prefer the
97xE if I needed to replace the V15. But given the results I'd now either
go for the M2 Black or see if I could get Expert Stylus to retip a V15
stylus.

FWIW one 'feature' I didn't comment on in the mag is that if you look at
the responses you can see a 'kink' in most of them. This seems to depend on
the headshell and the level of the cartridge's effective compliance, etc.

Slainte,

Jim


I noticed that kink (you do mean the one around 200Hz?). I can't find
any trace of it on my system in normal use, but there is just a hint of
it on the crosstalk test. I do wonder just how good the cutter that
makes test discs is compared to the cartridges that we use to reproduce
them. I suspect that for many tests the answer is - not much better.

d

New page on LP cartridge measurements, etc
 

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message

Just posting to let people know that audiomisc.co.uk now
includes a web version of the 4th article in my recent
HFN series on LP. This one provides measured results for
the old Shure V15/III and compares it with some modern MM
carts. Also has some close up photos of each stylus, etc.

With no exact link, it took me about 5 minutes to actually find the page.
:-(

The URL is http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/HFN/LP4/NewLampsForOld.html

Once there, it was an interesting read. No surprise, the Shures had far
better technical performance than the rest.

I'm kinda surprised you didn't try to find the optimal load for the
cartridges.

Here are some tests I did some years back. Not nearly as thorough or as
rigorous, but similar results insofar as they can be compared:

http://www.pcavtech.com/play-rec/rega-2/index.htm .

Other published LP tests are hard to find, but I did find this:

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/featu...rts-6---8.html

There are also some postings of test record transcriptions at

http://delback.co.uk/turntable_tests/

For grins, you might try to extract some frequency response information from
them.

New page on LP cartridge measurements, etc
 

Arny Krueger wrote:
"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message

Just posting to let people know that audiomisc.co.uk now
includes a web version of the 4th article in my recent
HFN series on LP. This one provides measured results for
the old Shure V15/III and compares it with some modern MM
carts. Also has some close up photos of each stylus, etc.

With no exact link, it took me about 5 minutes to actually find the page.
:-(

The URL is http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/HFN/LP4/NewLampsForOld.html

Once there, it was an interesting read. No surprise, the Shures had far
better technical performance than the rest.

I'm kinda surprised you didn't try to find the optimal load for the
cartridges.

Here are some tests I did some years back. Not nearly as thorough or as
rigorous, but similar results insofar as they can be compared:

http://www.pcavtech.com/play-rec/rega-2/index.htm .

Other published LP tests are hard to find, but I did find this:

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/featu...rts-6---8.html

There are also some postings of test record transcriptions at

http://delback.co.uk/turntable_tests/

For grins, you might try to extract some frequency response information from
them.



The Linn Sondek in that last link has the most fearsome wow (about 0.3%
RMS) - bad enough to be a real fault, I think. Frequency responses are
all over the place too - about 9dB slope from low to high.

d

New page on LP cartridge measurements, etc
 

"Don Pearce" wrote in message
et
Arny Krueger wrote:
"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message

Just posting to let people know that audiomisc.co.uk now
includes a web version of the 4th article in my recent
HFN series on LP. This one provides measured results for
the old Shure V15/III and compares it with some modern
MM carts. Also has some close up photos of each stylus,
etc.

With no exact link, it took me about 5 minutes to
actually find the page. :-(

The URL is
http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/HFN/LP4/NewLampsForOld.html Once there, it was
an interesting read. No surprise, the
Shures had far better technical performance than the
rest. I'm kinda surprised you didn't try to find the optimal
load for the cartridges.

Here are some tests I did some years back. Not nearly as
thorough or as rigorous, but similar results insofar as
they can be compared: http://www.pcavtech.com/play-rec/rega-2/index.htm .

Other published LP tests are hard to find, but I did
find this:
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/featu...rts-6---8.html

There are also some postings of test record
transcriptions at

http://delback.co.uk/turntable_tests/

For grins, you might try to extract some frequency
response information from them.

The Linn Sondek in that last link has the most fearsome
wow (about 0.3% RMS) - bad enough to be a real fault, I
think.

The dual peaks at 2919 and 2940 Hz suggest a modulation frequency of about
10 Hz. Is there a 600 rpm motor in there some place? If so, is its shaft
bent, the pully off-center, or ?????

Frequency responses are all over the place too -
about 9dB slope from low to high.

Thanks for confirming my findings.

New page on LP cartridge measurements, etc
 

In article , Arny
Krueger
wrote:
"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message

Just posting to let people know that audiomisc.co.uk now includes a
web version of the 4th article in my recent HFN series on LP. This one
provides measured results for the old Shure V15/III and compares it
with some modern MM carts. Also has some close up photos of each
stylus, etc.

With no exact link, it took me about 5 minutes to actually find the
page.
:-(

Sorry about that. I was just assuming people would go to the main audiomisc
page and scroll down this they found it. But I agree I should have given
the URL.

The URL is http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/HFN/LP4/NewLampsForOld.html

Once there, it was an interesting read. No surprise, the Shures had far
better technical performance than the rest.

The V15's did. I was impressed by how well they had stood up to the passing
of time. Textbook performance for stylii that are many years old.

But I was suprised by how the 97 really didn't seem very good to me.

I'm kinda surprised you didn't try to find the optimal load for the
cartridges.

Mainly because the article was 'New Lamps for Old' on the basis of just
swapping one cartridge for another. I am hoping to look at loading in the
future, but had to keep the work and the article length down to a
convenient size.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Change 'noise' to 'jcgl' if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

New page on LP cartridge measurements, etc
 

In article , Don
Pearce
wrote:
Jim Lesurf wrote:


Odd that - I would expect crosstalk performance to depend mostly on the
accuracy of the right angle between the two coils with some secondary
effects from the cantilever mounting. No real reason for either of those
to be so poor.

Indeed. I am also puzzled (as well as dissapointed) by this. Seems to me to
be a sign that something isn't right. I spent more time on the M97s than
anything else, trying to see if the results could be improved. But in the
end I decided the values I was getting were about it. Nor did the crosstalk
seem to be due to distortion. Maybe the stylus is 'rotating' because the
mass and force are off the cantilever/suspension axis. Dunno. Gave up
puzzling over this and published the results.

Also surprised by the stark differences shown by the photos of the
stylus of the 97xE compared with the old HE and MR. Chalk and cheese.


I spy cost-cutting.

Maybe. Again this was quite a surprise for me given the superb V15.



FWIW one 'feature' I didn't comment on in the mag is that if you look
at the responses you can see a 'kink' in most of them. This seems to
depend on the headshell and the level of the cartridge's effective
compliance, etc.


I noticed that kink (you do mean the one around 200Hz?).

Yes.

I can't find any trace of it on my system in normal use, but there is
just a hint of it on the crosstalk test. I do wonder just how good the
cutter that makes test discs is compared to the cartridges that we use
to reproduce them. I suspect that for many tests the answer is - not
much better.

I also wondered about that. But it showed up to a different extent (and
frequency!) when I changed from one cart+headshell to another. My guess is
that the V15 has high compliance and tiny mass, so delivers minimal
vibration into the arm. But the other carts aren't as good in this respect,
so excite more in spurious arm or headshell resonances. The 97 does look as
if it has a much bigger effective tip mass than the V15, so a static
compliance value may not give the game away.

For convenience I used more than one headshell, so they may also differ.

May sometime do more precise plots with noise and time-averaged spectra.
But I didn't do that here as they need to be corrected for the recorded
response[1], and I also wanted to extract THD values. The stepped sinewaves
on the 'Ultimate Analog' test LP were excellent for this. But the stepped
waveforms were more tedious to use than noise. Was meaning to also do
crosstalk versus frequency, but again ran out of time and patience! Another
day, maybe.

By then end of that article I wanted a break from 4 in a row about LP. So
ended up doing at least four on speaker cables! Must be mad. 8-]

Been told that the second cables article is now out, but not seen it as
yet.

Slainte,

Jim

[1]I have done some responses with various 'noise bands' on test LPs, and
they seem to give a wild variety of results. Results generally neither
pink, nor flat, not anything else that would make obvious sense. Prompt for
a latin tag about who guards the guardians... :-)

--
Change 'noise' to 'jcgl' if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

New page on LP cartridge measurements, etc
 

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message

"Don Pearce" wrote in message
et
Arny Krueger wrote:

http://delback.co.uk/turntable_tests/

For grins, you might try to extract some frequency
response information from them.

The Linn Sondek in that last link has the most fearsome
wow (about 0.3% RMS) - bad enough to be a real fault, I
think.

Correct that. The predominate jitter frequency seems to be 0.55 Hz -
off-center record.