Holistic Audio HA103-SEL LOMC Cartridge - Review

No! cartridges have different distortions and plenty of them too, even the very best ones. Their tracking and inner groove *tracing* varies widely and of course, very few cartridges even today have anywhere near a truly flat frequency response at the frequency extremes. Added to that, MC's with responses going out to 50khz or so may upset some phono stages too, especially cheaper ones with marginal overload margins and that's even before the ultrasonic peaks many cartridges have.

I like AT's. Older MM's had the typical hf droop followed by a recovery at 15khz or so. Current models and starting generally with the K9 all those years back, are 'flatter' in the lower hf region and then peaking up between 10 and 20khz, adding some sparkle on older pressings and also some extra noise if you're unlucky. I have my Dad's old late 60's Philips LP set of Handel's Messiah (Colin Davis), which I play every Christmas out of respect to my Dad. It's as muffled as heck, but the AT120E (worse up top than its replacement 530EN I believe) 6db hf peak gives the recording it's high frequencies back and I love it. A bit too much on The Fixx 'Phantoms' which was a very hf-hot cut to start with.

All good fun init, so forgive this grumpy old sour-puss. Oli and others of you know how a really good and properly set up higher end vinyl rig helps you to forget the issues which are there as everything else is done so bloody well.

P.S. Looks like my Garrard 401 has been found and not badly stored away either. I seem to be a sucker for old rumble boxes but I can't wait to get my mitts on it again and see what can be done

RIAA was standard by the late 1950s I thought?

HF is the first thing to go on a well-played record though, probably not helped by some old timey cartridge weighting a ton and tracking at half a ton.

'Sparkle' is much lower down the frequency spectrum than seems to be generally thought, it isn't out there at 20Khz, nothing is really. By 8 Khz it's all pretty much over, music wise. No-one thinks of middle C on a piano as being a 'low' note but it's 520 Hz - approx.

Oh my giddy ........you kept that quiet.

Bated breath Oliver...

If only I knew how to post that popcorn eating emoticon

anticipation...

It's here:

audioaddictsforum.com/thread/1306/bigman-visits-phonomac-10-03