Thats a fantastic question! And i dont understand why a shrunken magnet in a MM type might not be extremely desirable...a)it would give user replaceable styli b)the stylus would track more accurately. Well done for thinking of this smart question!!

The advantage would be still an interchangeable stylus, even if all other parameters (such as output) were identical.

There are low output non-MC cartridges like those from Grado Labs & Soundsmith, which are "moving iron" cartridges, which have low mass, as well as be run into a MC phono stage.

@bestuurdvsgroningen3603

Ай бұрын

Big fan of moving iron myself. Got an empire 2000e/i a couple of years ago and it still blows my mind.

@oneemotiva4975

Ай бұрын

Very good cartridges actually.

@stevengagnon4777

Ай бұрын

Still using Stanton 680/ 681 series moving iron. Very nice sound stage. Extremely versatile with a stylus for every purpose. The nude mounted ones are pretty low in mass. The ease and cost of replacement is certainly a benefit. It's a shame that Gibson dropped the ball on Stanton It's the 681 has been my go to since1978. Thankfully Japanese aftermarket is pretty good for these .

@oneemotiva4975

Ай бұрын

HI, I have many cartridges, including a Eat #5, Goldring, Love my Clear Audio Goldfinger and my Koetsu Rosewood Signature Platinum. Turntables, VPI Direct and EAT Forte S. Looking to adquire a new Turntable soon to replace my VPI direct.

@stephenchen1420

Ай бұрын

I've been well & truly "been bitten by the MC bug", having used them for over 30 years; including Audio Technica OC-9 & 3 Lyras - Helikon, Skala & now Etna Lambda. Prior to that I was a huge fan of Grado (& still am), having used a Signarure 8 Revised from 1984.

The question is fair and there are examples of cartridges made with such compromise obviously benefitting from lower mass needing MC phono input. I think one reason you don’t want to do it is the signal quality is less than MC.

Who says MC has lower mass, copper coils on iron cross, all dense materials vs a rather small magnet of samarian- cobalt like on a Stanton. But it doesn’t really matter as all that mass is in close proximity to the pivot point and contributes little to the inertia, like the heavy counterweight in a tonearm. The cantilever and stylus are far more important. Tapered aluminium is probably the lightest, and small shank stylus, also shorter cantilever (some Dynavector). In the 70’s exotic MM cartridges with unobtanium cantilevers(tubular beryllium, boron or sapphire) would state their effective mass in spec sheets, nobody does that anymore. The top MC cartridges today use heavy diamond cantilevers, so light mass is not what drives performance. Maybe it is market driven, Soundsmith makes low output versions because that’s what people expect in an expensive cartridge.

Inertia, a property of Mass in Classical Physics.

We have achieved the ' no mass' phono cartridge .. the DS audio DS003 optical ... there's no mass ! It does however require a different phono stage .. I've recently acquired one and I highly recommend it 👍

@SpyderTracks

Ай бұрын

It’s not phono, it’s digital. All done by optical lasers

@janinapalmer8368

Ай бұрын

@@SpyderTracksit plays vinyl records only ... I've not come across digital vinyl recordings

@richardvezina5346

Ай бұрын

There is mass, the light stream is modulated by a lightweight shield

@tristanjones7735

Ай бұрын

It's not massless. It just has optical sensors instead of coils which are lower mass. But you are thinking about the old laser systems that bounced light off the record which is massless.

@tristanjones7735

Ай бұрын

@@SpyderTracks All optical devices work in the analog domain. In fact you could take a LED, shine a light on it, and generate a tiny voltage. If you could wiggle the intensity of the light, you would get a tiny analog AC noise across the terminals of the LED. IDK how DS specifically designed their phono setup, but it is entirely possible it is analog.

The voltage output is a direct relationship between the number of coils moving through a specific magnetic field. All else equal, smaller magnets would be less voltage. Moving them down into the MC area. Variable reluctance. Fixed coil and magnet structure. Moving metal between them to vary the magnetic field that way. The metal is far less mass than either a magnet or coil. Acutex came out with a line using this after Audio Technica came out with their line which had the patented dual magnet V design. AT sued Acutex because they copied the dual magnetic V structure patent.

The new tech is optical cartridge for phono.

@stephenchen1420

Ай бұрын

The closest to a "massless" system.

@RoderikvanReekum

Ай бұрын

​@@stephenchen1420They did that in the early 80's it's called a CD player.

@stephenchen1420

Ай бұрын

@@RoderikvanReekum , noted, a completely different format!

@musicman8270

Ай бұрын

Old tech, been around for awhile. And it outputs a digital signal. Why have an analog source if you convert it to digital. Like blutooth or USB on a turntable

@joegreen4089

Ай бұрын

​@@RoderikvanReekum in 1941 it was philco beam of light kzread.info/dash/bejne/eX2Yy5l7hNe6nLA.htmlsi=dbk-Jgdk_c6qUlcX

Pickering has made exactly such cartridge in the past (I believe something with 7800 in the model name). I would call that a proof of concept. It was highly regarded as well. So if you ask why they don't make it any more (under the Stanton name)? I would say it is not a given that it was not good enough. I guess they lost the know how. The same happened with Shure, and sadly they gave up on phono cartridges all together. Stanton is holding on for dear life. You could conciser them a Zombie company.

@stevengagnon4777

Ай бұрын

Stanton was sold to Gibson....that pretty much explains what happened.

DS Audio produce an optical cartridge which has an optical reader, and low mass, i have never heard one used.

Stanton once made some moving-magnet cartridges that had the low output of typical MC cartridges. I don't see much point in those products, unless they reduced the mass of the magnet, accepting a reduction in output voltage. I'm wondering if Stanton did exactly what the query suggests.

@bestuurdvsgroningen3603

Ай бұрын

The stantons you mean are probably moving iron

@curtiscroulet8715

Ай бұрын

@@bestuurdvsgroningen3603 I don't think so. The model numbers I've found are 980LZS and 981LZS. The descriptions I've found are that these were moving-magnet types, but I haven't yet located any official advertising or spec sheets for them. They were already out-of-production by the time of my oldest Stereo Buyer's Guide (1993).

@curtiscroulet8715

Ай бұрын

@@bestuurdvsgroningen3603 No. Stanton 980LZS. Moving magnet. My attempts to post a reply with a link have not worked.

@StopAndGetGas

Ай бұрын

Sounded to me like the idea of the question was to move the MM form closer to comparable MC performance at a more accessible (lower) co$t than those ultra pricey MC cartridges?

@curtiscroulet8715

Ай бұрын

@@StopAndGetGas My repeated attempts to reply have not been posted. We'll see if this reply "takes." The Stanton models were 980LSZ and 981LSZ. There might've also been "MkII" versions, also. They were moving magnet designs. The point is this: The exact thing that the OP suggested to Paul McGowan has, in fact, been tried. I'm surprised that Mr. McGown has no knowledge of this, given his long experience in hi-end audio.

The Ortofon OM series are incredibly small must have a small magnet then?

I think the mass was shrunk with the introduction of neodymium to give same field strength but smaller.

For once Paul seems to have sidestepped the question, although he seems to understand it. Two (dominant) wiggly groove playback technologies: MM high output plus high moving stuff mass negative; MC low output minus low moving stuff mass positive, wires connect to stuff attached to needle, negative (and nobody seems concerned with the necessary bending of those wires adding to inertia). So why not strike a balance by reducing the mass in a MM?

phono cartridge technology goes back to pre world war times , Boss , i think , production of phono cartridge , should be discontinued a long time ago , as it is only a mechanical to electrical signal transducer , doesn't last long, too expensive , very much antiquated by modern technological standards.

@spacemissing

Ай бұрын

Doesn't last long??? I have cartridges nearly 50 years old that still work perfectly. And none of them were "expensive".

No Mas…No Mas I’ve had enough with this cartridge talk.

That's how it works. Someone like Albert Einstein didn't make many mistakes.

I don't see any reason to reinvent phono cartridges.

Kind of a confused answer. On the one hand you're saying "the less mass the better", yet on the other hand you're saying "I don't understand why you'd want to reduce the mass".

This is the first time I have felt like bs coming from you until the final "I donno". It is actually an interesting question and I'd actually like to hear an answer that made sense. Sorry; but you didn't help yourself with this one.

@0:59 "You have a cantilever, which is the needle." Stereos do not have needles. It is a stylus. I wonder... would he call a stylus a needle if he were in a meeting with the executives and top engineers of Clearaudio, Air Tight, VPI, Ortofon, SME, Koetsu, Lyra, etc? Doesn't he know that such executives and engineers watch these videos? Let's not have an educational channel misinform the viewers. This is not the first time that our host has done that. He has done it in several videos.

@Bannockburn111

Ай бұрын

Maybe it's a "stylus" to you highfalutin types, but "needle" was the term that was always used back in the day. (As in, you started playing a record by "dropping the needle" on it, never did I hear "dropping the stylus" used.) And, yeah, I bet he'd get in meetings with the top cartridge engineers these days and use "needle" without shame or embarrassment, because old farts like us don't give a dang what young snobs think about nonsense like that.

@ianbigsand7

Ай бұрын

Paul is well aware that it is called a stylus and he probably could talk at length about all of the stylus profiles should he wish to. His issue is that he is trying to be accessible to people who are a bit hazy about the technicalities.

@Geerladenlad

Ай бұрын

Old school people have called it a needle for decades.

@SpaghettiKillah

Ай бұрын

Oooh no Snowflakes have arrived in the hi-fi hobby 🤣 Gotta be careful what pronouns we use now 😂 Sir, is the speaker male or female? Or is it non-binary?

@faludabutt8253

Ай бұрын

Paul’s speakers are designed to play digital sources at their best. They aren’t really for analogue playback. Hence, Paul isn’t really into analogue domain except for few phono-stages. For vinyl playback, 2-way speakers are enough.