[bigshot]

I'd love to see the measurements on a 50kHz signal from a cartridge reading an actual vinyl record. It's just not happening. Ever.

You was to know an interesting thing about vampire lore? A vampire can't come to someone late at night to attack them until they've been invited into the home first.

 

[analogsurviver]

I'd love to see the measurements on a 50kHz signal from a cartridge reading an actual vinyl record. It's just not happening. Ever.

Hey... HOW many of them do you want ?

Here a good primer - and one of the best among the good ( but FAR from the fastest ) goes WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-----------------------------------------AAAAAAAY back; 44 years back -

to 1974, to be precise ( JVC X-1, by now almost extinct, fetching silly money if and when it pops up for sale as NOS or still usable condition ( berillium for cantilevers no longer allowed for decades, due to impossibility to work with it for cartridges in a sealed atmosphere, where micro dust could be trapped - it is highly toxic, cancerogene material https://www.livescience.com/28641-beryllium.html) :

https://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/vt.mpl?f=vinyl&m=1094587

Cartridges using other materials for the cantilever have been and are being produced today - all of which can play to 50 kHz and beyond.

I have MANY recordings up to 50 kHz ( various test records ) of various phono cartridges - for practical reasons in DSD128. Currently searching for some software that could from these files converted to 192/24 create graphs ( man, do I miss the ol' but precise & reliable Bruel & Kjaer chart recorder - still going strong at Benz Micro Switzerland, where I used to work... ), something at least comparable to B & K printouts.

By 67500 Hz ( 50 kHz test record intended for playback at 33 1/3 RPM played at 45 RPM ) , which is the highest "reasonable" frequency for phono playback, there are quite a few cartridges that still perform well . Sorry, I do not have the fastest carts, which go past 100 kHz - to be tempted to spin that test record even higher, without causing irreparable damage to delicate high frequency information .

By 67500 Hz and higher, no soundcard without 384kHz sampling could be thought of being linear enough - all 192 kHz soundcards trade ultimately achievable linearity for smoother somewhat falling response past approx 50 kHz (depending on make/model), without resorting to so brickwall type of filtering like necessitated by 16/44.1 RBCD .

Would a 192/24 file recording from a phono cartridge playing a test record without any processing ( graphs, charts, etc ) be enough to convince you that dragging a stone in some vinyl canal can actually go to 50 kHz - and beyond ?

 

[bigshot]

 

[colonelkernel8]

I regret asking.

 

[gregorio]

I'd love to see the measurements on a 50kHz signal from a cartridge reading an actual vinyl record. It's just not happening. Ever.

You would measure something, unwanted noise/interference/distortion products. It's all just trash and therefore most of us would want to get rid of it but there's always someone for whom the old cliche applies, "One man's trash is another man's gold".

I regret asking.

Yep, that was a mistake baring in mind there's someone in this thread for whom trash is not only gold but is actually more important than all the stuff which isn't trash!!

G

 

[bigshot]

When my uncle was a young man, he was totally engrossed with hunting and fishing. The family would get together for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner and the table would be full of people. As soon as there was the slightest gap in conversation, he would loudly interject... "Speaking of duck hunting..." and launch into an extended monologue on the subject. Of course no one actually *was* speaking of duck hunting. He was the only one interested in that subject and it consumed his full attention 24/7. For years afterwards it became a joke at the dinner table to say "Speaking of duck hunting..." As soon as someone said that, it was the cue for everyone at the table to loudly shout him down. A big laugh. We have several people like my uncle in this forum. They don't need any excuse to launch into their own pet topics of discussion and they won't stop, even when they see that their conversation isn't engaging the interest of anyone else. It reminds me of holiday dinner with my family sometimes!

 

[Steve999]

That graph is astounding! Is that a Denon calibration or measurement graph? That it tracked on a record up to 50 khz is truly amazing.

Also the frequency response appears flat as a board until you get up into ultrasonic territory, if I am reading it correctly.
I am still not sure there is anything meaningful up there for someone like me to hear--my hearing is not so good to begin with, and that's way out of the conventionally accepted audible range. But just as a technical feat I am truly surprised. I suppose it's kind of like a fine watch--it keeps the same time, but only better.

That brings me to something more mundane. I had always noticed a difference between high frequency content from records and those from CDs. The records always seemed to have more emphasis in the upper frequencies. I had a Signet cartridge, which someone told me was a brand that often put some extra emphasis in the treble. I switched over to an Audio Technica, and that seemed to give flatter results in the treble when compared to CD recordings. These are purely uncontrolled subjective impressions on my part so they are not too reliable, but can anyone confirm this might or might not have been the case?

Also, perhaps this individual was asked a direct question and provided a direct answer? And the result does look kind of amazing. I'm not in a position to judge the technical merit of it though.

Thanks, everyone.

Hey... HOW many of them do you want ?
:
https://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/vt.mpl?f=vinyl&m=1094587

Cartridges using other materials for the cantilever have been and are being produced today - all of which can play to 50 kHz and beyond.

I have MANY recordings up to 50 kHz ( various test records ) of various phono cartridges - for practical reasons in DSD128. Currently searching for some software that could from these files converted to 192/24 create graphs ( man, do I miss the ol' but precise & reliable Bruel & Kjaer chart recorder - still going strong at Benz Micro Switzerland, where I used to work... ), something at least comparable to B & K printouts.

By 67500 Hz ( 50 kHz test record intended for playback at 33 1/3 RPM played at 45 RPM ) , which is the highest "reasonable" frequency for phono playback, there are quite a few cartridges that still perform well . Sorry, I do not have the fastest carts, which go past 100 kHz - to be tempted to spin that test record even higher, without causing irreparable damage to delicate high frequency information .

By 67500 Hz and higher, no soundcard without 384kHz sampling could be thought of being linear enough - all 192 kHz soundcards trade ultimately achievable linearity for smoother somewhat falling response past approx 50 kHz (depending on make/model), without resorting to so brickwall type of filtering like necessitated by 16/44.1 RBCD .

Would a 192/24 file recording from a phono cartridge playing a test record without any processing ( graphs, charts, etc ) be enough to convince you that dragging a stone in some vinyl canal can actually go to 50 kHz - and beyond ?

 

[analogsurviver]

That graph is astounding! Is that a Denon calibration or measurement graph? That it tracked on a record up to 50 khz is truly amazing.

Also the frequency response appears flat as a board until you get up into ultrasonic territory, if I am reading it correctly.
I am still not sure there is anything meaningful up there for someone like me to hear--my hearing is not so good to begin with, and that's way out of the conventionally accepted audible range. But just as a technical feat I am truly surprised. I suppose it's kind of like a fine watch--it keeps the same time, but only better.

That brings me to something more mundane. I had always noticed a difference between high frequency content from records and those from CDs. The records always seemed to have more emphasis in the upper frequencies. I had a Signet cartridge, which someone told me was a brand that often put some extra emphasis in the treble. I switched over to an Audio Technica, and that seemed to give flatter results in the treble when compared to CD recordings. These are purely uncontrolled subjective impressions on my part so they are not too reliable, but can anyone confirm this might or might not have been the case?

Also, perhaps this individual was asked a direct question and provided a direct answer? And the result does look kind of amazing. I'm not in a position to judge the technical merit of it though.

Thanks, everyone.

Hehe, in that reply I tried to stick strictly to results published online and provided by a third party - not manufacturer - as much as possible. And, I did stick to the requirement of signal from the cartridge being read off real world pressed test record.

The most severe and most revealing test on phono cartridge frequency response - ever - has been conducted and published by Peter Moncrieff of International Audio Review. I have to tell to the less initiated; the mere mentioning of his name is most likely call to the arms in the "opposite camp" - for too many reasons to be discussed within this thread.

By simply putting the cartridge's stylus to a hard ( glass ) surface down, a step in vertical direction is generated; I do have the entire review, from the best - trough to the NR ( NOT RECOMMENDED ) (class of ) phono cartridges, which had - obviously - the response too mangled to be published.

IAR is the only audio magazine that does not accept any advertising - either back then in print , or today, online magazine. It does not do "paid for reviews", but is likely to work with the manufacturer in particularly interesting/promising products. That is why the subscriptions costs - dearly so, in fact - unlike anything more conventional that does accept advertising..
http://www.iar-80.com/
Copyright is meant VERY seriously here. Back in the day of printed magazine/newsletter, things as radical as printing dark green letters on dark violet paper have been enforced in later issues - to combat photocopying. For this reason, I will NOT provide any scans from this review; anyone interested enough still has the option to legally obtain the desired contents. Bearing in mind how much do audio components cost - and how many costly mistakes could be avoided by reading a truly unbiased review - the price of admission is really low.

Here a link to the two of the best phono cartridges in the above mentioned survey; to my knowledge, the only way to see any of these tests
to beyond 100kHz ( 256kHz limit of the ADC used at the time (1980), cartridges go even higher ) online.

http://www.cieri.net/Documenti/Cataloghi/Altri marchi/Dynavector - Moving Coil Cartridge Test Reports and Reviews.pdf

Remember, the successor to the two original Dynavector Karat cartridges is still alive and kicking, an even better DV-17D3 - at around 1400 $; not exactly cheap, but not exorbitant either.

Regarding Signet and Audio Technica - they are the very same brand ! Signet used to be a "laboratory grade, built by hand" line of Audio Technica ( today's equivalent would be Toyota and Lexus ) - usually, it went another mile in what really counts - cantilever and stylus. To this day, the rare Signet TK-10ML (any of the three marks) and ultra uber rare TK-100LC represent, in more than one way, the pinnacle in moving magnet phono cartridge, exceeding anything ever offered by Audio Technica ( and most of the other manufacturers ) otherwise. As a matter of fact, in the above mentioned survey, one of the key reviews is that for the Signet TK-7"xy" phono cartridge. In Signet TK-7 series , Audio Technica pulled out all the stops; IIRC, four cantilever materials and three stylus tip profiles, making- effectively - 12 phono cartridges, 12 different stylus assemblies all using the same cartridge body. It is also a primer on proper electrical cartridge loading ... - as usual, DIFFERENT from the manufacturer specified - if the optimum response is to be achieved.

 

[bigshot]

LP records usually have no signal above 17-18kHz, but they do have high frequency noise if your cart can reproduce it. That's fine because most people can't hear above that, and music doesn't generally contain frequencies above that.

 

[analogsurviver]

LP records usually have no signal above 17-18kHz, but they do have high frequency noise if your cart can reproduce it. That's fine because most people can't hear above that, and music doesn't generally contain frequencies above that.

And yes - and no.

There are, unfortunately, records that contain unbelievable levels of noise above 20 kHz. For these, a cartridge that does not extend much beyond 20k is preferable.

The quietest cartridge in the groove I have heard - bar none - is EXTREMISTICALLY ( extremistically > extremely ) flat to 40 kHz ( less than + - 1dB ); then it does something extremely unusual, something no other cart I have seen does. It has a rather sharp rollof above 40 kHz - not RBCD brickwall, of course, but FAR steeper than any other cartidge I have yet seen, worked with or heard. Long out of production, in order to achieve the above response used in a totally different way than usual, ever more rare and expensive on the used market if and when it does appear for sale. The amount of precise details it pulls out of the record really has to be heard to be believed. And the treble , although never etched or sharp, is so much more alive than RBCD that it really hurts to hear side by side record and CD of the same recording - PROVIDED the master is the same.

I really did not like the way audio press treated this MM cartridge ( relatively inexpensive when new ) - postponing publishing the review ( even if hell bent on writing a negative review about it for whatever reason, it simply is not possible - not if the reviewer wants to retain any credibility or wants to be trusted again ) until it has been anounced by the manufacturer that the model in question is to be discontrinued shortly. I tried to order it immediately - but so did many, many others. A friend got one of the very last few, ordered just a day before me. I did get to try it in my system for a week - and I do not like to remember just how it swept aside the bad and present the recording in a clarity that has no equal. That thing reproduces 40 kHz like very few carts can reporoduce - 1 kHz ...

A well recorded analogue record mastered in real time can have flat response to 27 kHz or so - and half speed mastered double that, to 54 kHz or so. That is why half speed mastered records are sought after - even today. If played on quality turntable/arm/cartridge, they can audibly exceed anything possible on CD - as far as frequency response extension in the treble goes.

However, it is not only about analogue records - HR , regardless if PCM or DSD, can also offer vsimilar listening experience, one that can not be equaled with RBCD. HR does not require any more knowledge and experience than required for RBCD - and is only insignificantly more expensive than RBCD. Something it will NEVER be possible with analogue.

 

[bigshot]

My brother had a very good Thorens turntable that he kept in good align. He also had a McIntosh system to go with it. He went out and bought an audiophile test record that had tones all the way up to 20kHz. The album warned on the cover that although the record contained very high frequencies, they would only be useable for a limited number of plays. Even with a good turntable, the normal wear and tear of tracking the groove tore up the delicate modulations required to reproduce 20kHz. Sure enough, the first time my brother played the 20kHz tone, it was stone silent. After 4 or 5 plays, it started to sound all crackly because the modulations in the groove were deteriorating. Eventually it was just noise. Midrange tones and below still sounded like new.

When I was first starting out in the business, I worked in a sound house next door to a fella who ran one of the very best quality LP cutting houses in Hollywood. We shared a parking lot and became friendly. He showed me his lathes and I asked him a million questions. He told me that LPs had a high end roll off to prevent premature groove wear. He said that it varied depending on the intended audience- classical music rolled off around 17kHz and popular music started rolling off as low as 14kHz. The degree of rolloff varied depending on how far into the side the cut was. Outer grooves had a higher rolloff and inner grooves had a much more drastic rolloff. He said that if he didn't do that, the record stores would get lots of returns for premature record wear.

But of course none of this matters, because super audible frequencies are irrelevant when it comes to sound quality, because humans can't hear them. More isn't better if your ears can't hear it.

I think I told you all this before. You must have forgotten.

 

[Steve999]

That's funny. So I left a higher-end cartridge for a mid-range cartridge by the same company. Now that you mention it, I do remember the guy at the record store telling me that the styli were interchangeable.

I drive a Chevrolet and a Toyota.

Hehe, in that reply I tried to stick strictly to results published online and provided by a third party - not manufacturer - as much as possible. And, I did stick to the requirement of signal from the cartridge being read off real world pressed test record.

Regarding Signet and Audio Technica - they are the very same brand ! Signet used to be a "laboratory grade, built by hand" line of Audio Technica ( today's equivalent would be Toyota and Lexus ) - usually, it went another mile in what really counts - cantilever and stylus. To this day, the rare Signet TK-10ML (any of the three marks) and ultra uber rare TK-100LC represent, in more than one way, the pinnacle in moving magnet phono cartridge, exceeding anything ever offered by Audio Technica ( and most of the other manufacturers ) otherwise.

 

[analogsurviver]

My brother had a very good Thorens turntable that he kept in good align. He also had a McIntosh system to go with it. He went out and bought an audiophile test record that had tones all the way up to 20kHz. The album warned on the cover that although the record contained very high frequencies, they would only be useable for a limited number of plays. Even with a good turntable, the normal wear and tear of tracking the groove tore up the delicate modulations required to reproduce 20kHz. Sure enough, the first time my brother played the 20kHz tone, it was stone silent. After 4 or 5 plays, it started to sound all crackly because the modulations in the groove were deteriorating. Eventually it was just noise. Midrange tones and below still sounded like new.

When I was first starting out in the business, I worked in a sound house next door to a fella who ran one of the very best quality LP cutting houses in Hollywood. We shared a parking lot and became friendly. He showed me his lathes and I asked him a million questions. He told me that LPs had a high end roll off to prevent premature groove wear. He said that it varied depending on the intended audience- classical music rolled off around 17kHz and popular music started rolling off as low as 14kHz. The degree of rolloff varied depending on how far into the side the cut was. Outer grooves had a higher rolloff and inner grooves had a much more drastic rolloff. He said that if he didn't do that, the record stores would get lots of returns for premature record wear.

But of course none of this matters, because super audible frequencies are irrelevant when it comes to sound quality, because humans can't hear them. More isn't better if your ears can't hear it.

I think I told you all this before. You must have forgotten.

I know all of the above.

Unlike the CD, which is a unified thing ( with departure from dead neutral either way really small ), analogue record can be soooo multifaceted thing it is mind boggling. And, ultimately, it boils down to record wear. The biggest derstroyer that is quite well hidden is - inertia of all conventional tonearms. Inertia is the least well understood term in nall of analogue audio. The only man that got it right was the late David Gammon of Transcriptors. He is the only one to define what he termed the seesaw frequency. And that is the frequency at which a tonearm oscilates when set for zero vertical tracing force, when it is an equilibrium.

Any normal length - say 9 inch, as the most common - oscilates REALLY SLOW - say 1 Hz or so. That is hopelessly inadequate if it wants to provide the essential function - to present a firm yet stable platform WITHOUT FLUCTUATING vertical tracking force to the stylus. David Gammon set the most important criterion for analogue record playback :

The seesaw frequency should, in theory, exceed 20000 Hz. Since that is impossible, it should - at the very least - exceed the fundamental mass/compliance resonance ( those (in)famous around 10 Hz ).

This is the reason behind his revolutionary Vestigal tonearm. And, in practice it can only be achieved by the lightest of phono cartridges - below 3 gram mass class, This can go as far as requiring plastic bolts and nuts hardware to mount the cartridge. That also means a very high compliance cartridge, if it should have the main mass/compliance resonance at 10 Hz and not too much higher. Of the cartridges available today, that means Ortofon OM (Super) series - but there were others, both MM and MC types, that had suitable specs.

Please check again the Fig.28 of http://www.theanalogdept.com/images/spp6_pics/TT_Design/MechanicalResonances.pdf - and it should be clear just about what it is all about above. Arm 1 is Vestigal - but, at that time, no cartridges of below 3 gram class were yet available. The results would have been otherwise much better still.

Vestigal was/is a strange mix - work of genious, work of art, testimony to the sloppiness of real human beings ( there were excessive variations of the quality of bearing adjustments ) - and is unlike most other tonearms ever made commercially available in actual daily use. A more robust, "humane", if somewhat downgraded and upgraded at the same time , version is the Dynavector arm - at a MUCH higher price.

All tonearms with as low effective length in vertical direction as Vestigal, and, to a lower extent, the Dynavector arm, suffer from warped records. There is no other way but to change vertical tracking angle when transversing warps - and that not only has as a consequence increase in distortion and decrease of channel separation, but also means change in the appearent pitch of the reproduction. When going up the warp, the pitch lowers - only to go higher than nominal on the downside stroke. And, that is anything but desired.

When I first encountered the Versa Dynamics turntable, all that I could utter was : " ... finally - a well made Vestigal ! " Versa is a SYSTEM - an integrated turntable and linear tracking tonearm , both operating with air bearings. The most important feature : vacuum hold down for the record. It has inbuilt logic which would never allow the platter to start spinning unless the proper vacuum hold down for the record has been achieved.

It is unfair to all those who have never heard a Versa table ( any model, of course the higher up the range, the better, but in principle all of them are the same, only execution is ever better ) with, at a first glance, FAR too low quality cartridge for a behemoth price TT - Ortofon OM 20 Super. Yet, properly aligned and with lowest mass Versa "headshelkl" and without Ortofon additional weight ( cartridge mass in this case 2.3 gram ), this combination FINALLY does achieve the seesaw criterion - the oscillation of the arm set to zero tracking force is in vertical direction finally higher - by the tiniest of margins - than the mass/compliance resonant frequency.

What does it mean - really ? It means that the record can be - FINALLY - reproduced without/SIGNIFICANTLY reduced vertical modulation from the record warps. You can get fooled the signal is not coming off the record, but from a signal generator ... THAT MUCH better. No other analogue record player can pull this trick. I sincerely doubt any other player, be it analogue or digital, can play at this level; Callas was simply unbelievable - as was pretty much everything we threw at it.

It also means this player has the lowest vertical tracking force variations and hence lowest record wear. Of course, one can use better cartridge/stylus - as long it is lower in mass than 3 grams and has high enough compliance. That leaves an extremely small selection of almost exclusively vintage carts - the best of them all probably being Bang & Olufsen MMC1 . Never heard one, let alone on Versa.

Regarding stylus and vinyl groove interface - another , most important factor, but the one most manufacturers of phono playback equipment tend to "conviniently" "forget" to tell you about. The pressure at the actual contacts ( there are two, for left and right channel ) is enormously high - and actually almost liquify the vinyl immediately after the stylus passes that portion of the groove. The catch is to use the pressure that does not result in plastic deformation ( permanent damage to the groove, normally affecting the high frequencies at first ), but stays within elastic deformation of the vinyl. Shure has once termed that Indentation Factor, back in the day, Van den Hul did specify the maximum VTF that is still safe with his VdH I and VdH II profiles - the mention of both by both companies dissapeared in thin airover years. Shure allowed its phono detriorate to the point it was necessary to put it out of its misery some two moths or so ago for good - the "niceties" like Indentation Factor swept under the rug and forgotten long before that. VdH does produce cartridge(s) that can operate at low enough VTF in order to stay well within the elastic deformation of the vinyl - but they are a minority and they cost an arm and a leg.

So... WHAT is the safe figure ? Less than 1 gram for elliptical ( does not exist today, at least not in current production ) , about 1.4 gram for VdH/Paratrace/ Micro Linear/SAS, slightly more for Shibata ( there are two Shibata profiles, differing in contact area ).

Now... how many styli with safe vinyl deformation mounted in less than three gram mass cartridges mounted in Versa table tracked at safe vertical tracking force is out there ? Probably, something closely approaching - zero. Sad, but true.

I can get very close to/meet the above requirement - Transcriptors Vestigal, Ortofon OM40 Super ( FG II stylus = for all practical purposes VdH II ) tracked at 1.4 gram - on a vacuum hold down turntable. This combination has the possibility to be "relatively widespread" - compared to Versa ( $$$, now more than new ) - but the number of serviceable Vestigals is slowly but securely sinking. An even rarer than both Vestigal and Versa that does allow for the requirements ( but without vacuum hold down ) is Transcriptors Transcriber - and one relatively widespread is the ReVox turntable, equally without the vacuum hold down. And at the low(er) end of the price spectrum, there was Aura turntable/arm from Czech(oslovakia?) Republic - an astonishingly good performer, regardless of price.

Bearing in mind with which "atrocities" some, if not most , analogue record users (ab)use their records, I am not surprised at your friend intentionally limitting HF for the commercoially released records. I still have a couple of used test records I brought from Benz Micro Switzerland - to some of them there are still attached the Bruel & Kjaer printouts of their frequency response, made with the reference phono cartridge - both as new record and after a certain number of plays. And the treble does go up in level above certain frequency - as does the distortion.

Shure even documented increase in noise level after certain number of plays of the vinyl record.

ALL of the above detrimental effects regarding record use can be - significantly - reduced with wet playback ; almost forgotten art, that is and will be gaining some traction now ultrasonic record cleaners have come down in price enough for serious record users to consider them in large enough extent. Can be as low as 185 EUR+ shipping.

What was written above is a primer how things should have been done under the ideal conditions. And, it IS perfectly possible. However, we do not live in an ideal world.

With all that said and done - high resolution digital, be it PCM or DSD, does not have the wear problems of analogue records.

No, I have not forgotten any (almost any? ) of what you have told me. Both records ( regardless how imperfect they are ) and HR exceed RBCD in one important area RBCD can do anything about - frequency response, or if you prefer it that way, time domain.

 

[colonelkernel8]

I know all of the above.

Unlike the CD, which is a unified thing ( with departure from dead neutral either way really small ), analogue record can be soooo multifaceted thing it is mind boggling. And, ultimately, it boils down to record wear. The biggest derstroyer that is quite well hidden is - inertia of all conventional tonearms. Inertia is the least well understood term in nall of analogue audio. The only man that got it right was the late David Gammon of Transcriptors. He is the only one to define what he termed the seesaw frequency. And that is the frequency at which a tonearm oscilates when set for zero vertical tracing force, when it is an equilibrium.

Any normal length - say 9 inch, as the most common - oscilates REALLY SLOW - say 1 Hz or so. That is hopelessly inadequate if it wants to provide the essential function - to present a firm yet stable platform WITHOUT FLUCTUATING vertical tracking force to the stylus. David Gammon set the most important criterion for analogue record playback :

The seesaw frequency should, in theory, exceed 20000 Hz. Since that is impossible, it should - at the very least - exceed the fundamental mass/compliance resonance ( those (in)famous around 10 Hz ).

This is the reason behind his revolutionary Vestigal tonearm. And, in practice it can only be achieved by the lightest of phono cartridges - below 3 gram mass class, This can go as far as requiring plastic bolts and nuts hardware to mount the cartridge. That also means a very high compliance cartridge, if it should have the main mass/compliance resonance at 10 Hz and not too much higher. Of the cartridges available today, that means Ortofon OM (Super) series - but there were others, both MM and MC types, that had suitable specs.

Please check again the Fig.28 of http://www.theanalogdept.com/images/spp6_pics/TT_Design/MechanicalResonances.pdf - and it should be clear just about what it is all about above. Arm 1 is Vestigal - but, at that time, no cartridges of below 3 gram class were yet available. The results would have been otherwise much better still.

Vestigal was/is a strange mix - work of genious, work of art, testimony to the sloppiness of real human beings ( there were excessive variations of the quality of bearing adjustments ) - and is unlike most other tonearms ever made commercially available in actual daily use. A more robust, "humane", if somewhat downgraded and upgraded at the same time , version is the Dynavector arm - at a MUCH higher price.

All tonearms with as low effective length in vertical direction as Vestigal, and, to a lower extent, the Dynavector arm, suffer from warped records. There is no other way but to change vertical tracking angle when transversing warps - and that not only has as a consequence increase in distortion and decrease of channel separation, but also means change in the appearent pitch of the reproduction. When going up the warp, the pitch lowers - only to go higher than nominal on the downside stroke. And, that is anything but desired.

When I first encountered the Versa Dynamics turntable, all that I could utter was : " ... finally - a well made Vestigal ! " Versa is a SYSTEM - an integrated turntable and linear tracking tonearm , both operating with air bearings. The most important feature : vacuum hold down for the record. It has inbuilt logic which would never allow the platter to start spinning unless the proper vacuum hold down for the record has been achieved.

It is unfair to all those who have never heard a Versa table ( any model, of course the higher up the range, the better, but in principle all of them are the same, only execution is ever better ) with, at a first glance, FAR too low quality cartridge for a behemoth price TT - Ortofon OM 20 Super. Yet, properly aligned and with lowest mass Versa "headshelkl" and without Ortofon additional weight ( cartridge mass in this case 2.3 gram ), this combination FINALLY does achieve the seesaw criterion - the oscillation of the arm set to zero tracking force is in vertical direction finally higher - by the tiniest of margins - than the mass/compliance resonant frequency.

What does it mean - really ? It means that the record can be - FINALLY - reproduced without/SIGNIFICANTLY reduced vertical modulation from the record warps. You can get fooled the signal is not coming off the record, but from a signal generator ... THAT MUCH better. No other analogue record player can pull this trick. I sincerely doubt any other player, be it analogue or digital, can play at this level; Callas was simply unbelievable - as was pretty much everything we threw at it.

It also means this player has the lowest vertical tracking force variations and hence lowest record wear. Of course, one can use better cartridge/stylus - as long it is lower in mass than 3 grams and has high enough compliance. That leaves an extremely small selection of almost exclusively vintage carts - the best of them all probably being Bang & Olufsen MMC1 . Never heard one, let alone on Versa.

Regarding stylus and vinyl groove interface - another , most important factor, but the one most manufacturers of phono playback equipment tend to "conviniently" "forget" to tell you about. The pressure at the actual contacts ( there are two, for left and right channel ) is enormously high - and actually almost liquify the vinyl immediately after the stylus passes that portion of the groove. The catch is to use the pressure that does not result in plastic deformation ( permanent damage to the groove, normally affecting the high frequencies at first ), but stays within elastic deformation of the vinyl. Shure has once termed that Indentation Factor, back in the day, Van den Hul did specify the maximum VTF that is still safe with his VdH I and VdH II profiles - the mention of both by both companies dissapeared in thin airover years. Shure allowed its phono detriorate to the point it was necessary to put it out of its misery some two moths or so ago for good - the "niceties" like Indentation Factor swept under the rug and forgotten long before that. VdH does produce cartridge(s) that can operate at low enough VTF in order to stay well within the elastic deformation of the vinyl - but they are a minority and they cost an arm and a leg.

So... WHAT is the safe figure ? Less than 1 gram for elliptical ( does not exist today, at least not in current production ) , about 1.4 gram for VdH/Paratrace/ Micro Linear/SAS, slightly more for Shibata ( there are two Shibata profiles, differing in contact area ).

Now... how many styli with safe vinyl deformation mounted in less than three gram mass cartridges mounted in Versa table tracked at safe vertical tracking force is out there ? Probably, something closely approaching - zero. Sad, but true.

I can get very close to/meet the above requirement - Transcriptors Vestigal, Ortofon OM40 Super ( FG II stylus = for all practical purposes VdH II ) tracked at 1.4 gram - on a vacuum hold down turntable. This combination has the possibility to be "relatively widespread" - compared to Versa ( $$$, now more than new ) - but the number of serviceable Vestigals is slowly but securely sinking. An even rarer than both Vestigal and Versa that does allow for the requirements ( but without vacuum hold down ) is Transcriptors Transcriber - and one relatively widespread is the ReVox turntable, equally without the vacuum hold down. And at the low(er) end of the price spectrum, there was Aura turntable/arm from Czech(oslovakia?) Republic - an astonishingly good performer, regardless of price.

Bearing in mind with which "atrocities" some, if not most , analogue record users (ab)use their records, I am not surprised at your friend intentionally limitting HF for the commercoially released records. I still have a couple of used test records I brought from Benz Micro Switzerland - to some of them there are still attached the Bruel & Kjaer printouts of their frequency response, made with the reference phono cartridge - both as new record and after a certain number of plays. And the treble does go up in level above certain frequency - as does the distortion.

Shure even documented increase in noise level after certain number of plays of the vinyl record.

ALL of the above detrimental effects regarding record use can be - significantly - reduced with wet playback ; almost forgotten art, that is and will be gaining some traction now ultrasonic record cleaners have come down in price enough for serious record users to consider them in large enough extent. Can be as low as 185 EUR+ shipping.

What was written above is a primer how things should have been done under the ideal conditions. And, it IS perfectly possible. However, we do not live in an ideal world.

With all that said and done - high resolution digital, be it PCM or DSD, does not have the wear problems of analogue records.

No, I have not forgotten any (almost any? ) of what you have told me. Both records ( regardless how imperfect they are ) and HR exceed RBCD in one important area RBCD can do anything about - frequency response, or if you prefer it that way, time domain.

Seems completely impractical for everything outside of a laboratory, which of course would just use digital and save themselves the ridiculous costs. You can't hear above 20kHz. 50kHz is completely useless for audio. Quit rambling.

 

[castleofargh]

I know all of the above.

Unlike the CD, which is a unified thing ( with departure from dead neutral either way really small ), analogue record can be soooo multifaceted thing it is mind boggling. And, ultimately, it boils down to record wear. The biggest derstroyer that is quite well hidden is - inertia of all conventional tonearms. Inertia is the least well understood term in nall of analogue audio. The only man that got it right was the late David Gammon of Transcriptors. He is the only one to define what he termed the seesaw frequency. And that is the frequency at which a tonearm oscilates when set for zero vertical tracing force, when it is an equilibrium.

Any normal length - say 9 inch, as the most common - oscilates REALLY SLOW - say 1 Hz or so. That is hopelessly inadequate if it wants to provide the essential function - to present a firm yet stable platform WITHOUT FLUCTUATING vertical tracking force to the stylus. David Gammon set the most important criterion for analogue record playback :

The seesaw frequency should, in theory, exceed 20000 Hz. Since that is impossible, it should - at the very least - exceed the fundamental mass/compliance resonance ( those (in)famous around 10 Hz ).

This is the reason behind his revolutionary Vestigal tonearm. And, in practice it can only be achieved by the lightest of phono cartridges - below 3 gram mass class, This can go as far as requiring plastic bolts and nuts hardware to mount the cartridge. That also means a very high compliance cartridge, if it should have the main mass/compliance resonance at 10 Hz and not too much higher. Of the cartridges available today, that means Ortofon OM (Super) series - but there were others, both MM and MC types, that had suitable specs.

Please check again the Fig.28 of http://www.theanalogdept.com/images/spp6_pics/TT_Design/MechanicalResonances.pdf - and it should be clear just about what it is all about above. Arm 1 is Vestigal - but, at that time, no cartridges of below 3 gram class were yet available. The results would have been otherwise much better still.

Vestigal was/is a strange mix - work of genious, work of art, testimony to the sloppiness of real human beings ( there were excessive variations of the quality of bearing adjustments ) - and is unlike most other tonearms ever made commercially available in actual daily use. A more robust, "humane", if somewhat downgraded and upgraded at the same time , version is the Dynavector arm - at a MUCH higher price.

All tonearms with as low effective length in vertical direction as Vestigal, and, to a lower extent, the Dynavector arm, suffer from warped records. There is no other way but to change vertical tracking angle when transversing warps - and that not only has as a consequence increase in distortion and decrease of channel separation, but also means change in the appearent pitch of the reproduction. When going up the warp, the pitch lowers - only to go higher than nominal on the downside stroke. And, that is anything but desired.

When I first encountered the Versa Dynamics turntable, all that I could utter was : " ... finally - a well made Vestigal ! " Versa is a SYSTEM - an integrated turntable and linear tracking tonearm , both operating with air bearings. The most important feature : vacuum hold down for the record. It has inbuilt logic which would never allow the platter to start spinning unless the proper vacuum hold down for the record has been achieved.

It is unfair to all those who have never heard a Versa table ( any model, of course the higher up the range, the better, but in principle all of them are the same, only execution is ever better ) with, at a first glance, FAR too low quality cartridge for a behemoth price TT - Ortofon OM 20 Super. Yet, properly aligned and with lowest mass Versa "headshelkl" and without Ortofon additional weight ( cartridge mass in this case 2.3 gram ), this combination FINALLY does achieve the seesaw criterion - the oscillation of the arm set to zero tracking force is in vertical direction finally higher - by the tiniest of margins - than the mass/compliance resonant frequency.

What does it mean - really ? It means that the record can be - FINALLY - reproduced without/SIGNIFICANTLY reduced vertical modulation from the record warps. You can get fooled the signal is not coming off the record, but from a signal generator ... THAT MUCH better. No other analogue record player can pull this trick. I sincerely doubt any other player, be it analogue or digital, can play at this level; Callas was simply unbelievable - as was pretty much everything we threw at it.

It also means this player has the lowest vertical tracking force variations and hence lowest record wear. Of course, one can use better cartridge/stylus - as long it is lower in mass than 3 grams and has high enough compliance. That leaves an extremely small selection of almost exclusively vintage carts - the best of them all probably being Bang & Olufsen MMC1 . Never heard one, let alone on Versa.

Regarding stylus and vinyl groove interface - another , most important factor, but the one most manufacturers of phono playback equipment tend to "conviniently" "forget" to tell you about. The pressure at the actual contacts ( there are two, for left and right channel ) is enormously high - and actually almost liquify the vinyl immediately after the stylus passes that portion of the groove. The catch is to use the pressure that does not result in plastic deformation ( permanent damage to the groove, normally affecting the high frequencies at first ), but stays within elastic deformation of the vinyl. Shure has once termed that Indentation Factor, back in the day, Van den Hul did specify the maximum VTF that is still safe with his VdH I and VdH II profiles - the mention of both by both companies dissapeared in thin airover years. Shure allowed its phono detriorate to the point it was necessary to put it out of its misery some two moths or so ago for good - the "niceties" like Indentation Factor swept under the rug and forgotten long before that. VdH does produce cartridge(s) that can operate at low enough VTF in order to stay well within the elastic deformation of the vinyl - but they are a minority and they cost an arm and a leg.

So... WHAT is the safe figure ? Less than 1 gram for elliptical ( does not exist today, at least not in current production ) , about 1.4 gram for VdH/Paratrace/ Micro Linear/SAS, slightly more for Shibata ( there are two Shibata profiles, differing in contact area ).

Now... how many styli with safe vinyl deformation mounted in less than three gram mass cartridges mounted in Versa table tracked at safe vertical tracking force is out there ? Probably, something closely approaching - zero. Sad, but true.

I can get very close to/meet the above requirement - Transcriptors Vestigal, Ortofon OM40 Super ( FG II stylus = for all practical purposes VdH II ) tracked at 1.4 gram - on a vacuum hold down turntable. This combination has the possibility to be "relatively widespread" - compared to Versa ( $$$, now more than new ) - but the number of serviceable Vestigals is slowly but securely sinking. An even rarer than both Vestigal and Versa that does allow for the requirements ( but without vacuum hold down ) is Transcriptors Transcriber - and one relatively widespread is the ReVox turntable, equally without the vacuum hold down. And at the low(er) end of the price spectrum, there was Aura turntable/arm from Czech(oslovakia?) Republic - an astonishingly good performer, regardless of price.

Bearing in mind with which "atrocities" some, if not most , analogue record users (ab)use their records, I am not surprised at your friend intentionally limitting HF for the commercoially released records. I still have a couple of used test records I brought from Benz Micro Switzerland - to some of them there are still attached the Bruel & Kjaer printouts of their frequency response, made with the reference phono cartridge - both as new record and after a certain number of plays. And the treble does go up in level above certain frequency - as does the distortion.

Shure even documented increase in noise level after certain number of plays of the vinyl record.

ALL of the above detrimental effects regarding record use can be - significantly - reduced with wet playback ; almost forgotten art, that is and will be gaining some traction now ultrasonic record cleaners have come down in price enough for serious record users to consider them in large enough extent. Can be as low as 185 EUR+ shipping.

What was written above is a primer how things should have been done under the ideal conditions. And, it IS perfectly possible. However, we do not live in an ideal world.

With all that said and done - high resolution digital, be it PCM or DSD, does not have the wear problems of analogue records.

No, I have not forgotten any (almost any? ) of what you have told me. Both records ( regardless how imperfect they are ) and HR exceed RBCD in one important area RBCD can do anything about - frequency response, or if you prefer it that way, time domain.

yeah, yeah. find anything with the potential to make some sound above 20khz no matter the actual level of fidelity, and call it superior to CD. this fallacy could pretty much have your name now. when you argue about that for DSD and highres vs CD, I lack evidence that it makes an audible difference, but at least I can grasp why you'd desire always MORE samples and higher frequency limit as a fidelity principle. in a 'why? because we can' kind of way. but the second you put vinyl above CD as a reproduction medium, you shoot yourself in the foot with an atomic bomb. and you do it all the time.
if only you could do like many folks here, just have your sample rate fetish on one hand, and your love of vinyl sound and turntable tweaks on the other, without foolishly trying to justify vinyls objectively with ultrasonic content. then you might start to make sense to us. several would still disagree, but in a "I think it's not audible" or "I don't like vinyl playback". that sort of disagreement. not the kind we have here where we can't help but question you sanity or honesty, because we have now pretty much ruled out the other options.