Many years ago, when all of the South by Southwest seminars and panels were located inside the Hyatt Hotel across Town Lake from downtown Austin, I tottered in from a long night of music and revelry, and stood waiting for one of the glass elevators that ran up and down one side of the hotel’s giant atrium. When the car arrived the doors swung open to reveal Mississippi blues piano player Pinetop Perkins who according to my math had to be in his early Eighties then, and who, with a mixture of teeth and gold in his mouth, was flanked by two beautiful and much…
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Strain-gauge phono cartridges are rarely made and seldom heard; for most vinyl fans, they are more myth than fact. Panasonic once made one, as did Sao Win, but those were decades ago. I've heard about those two models for years but have never seen, much less heard one.
As if he's not got enough to do building his extensive lines of moving-iron cartridges, preamplifiers, amplifiers, and speakers, Soundsmith's Peter Ledermann also makes a full line of strain-gauge cartridge systems available with a choice of six user-replaceable stylus profiles. I believe the Soundsmith is the only strain-…
Magnet-based cartridges, MM or MC, are devices that are sensitive to velocity, which is measured as distance over time; their electrical output is directly proportional to the stylus's speed as it's moved back and forth by the zigs and zags in the groove. By contrast, strain-gauge and piezo-electric (crystal or ceramic) cartridges are sensitive to displacement, without regard to time. Move the stylus in such a system the same distance, whether very slowly or very quickly, and the electrical output will be the same.
Magnet-based cartridges are very sensitive to how quickly or slowly the…
You could use the Musical Surroundings Fozgometer azimuth-alignment device and The Ultimate Analogue Test LP (LP, Analogue Productions AAPT 1) to precisely set azimuth, but I'm now using a digital oscilloscope that's theoretically more accurate. No more guessing. If you're spending this kind of money on a cartridge, I suggest you either get these devices and learn how to use them (I'll cover the digital oscilloscope in an upcoming column), or find someone who has.
The Strain Gauge's recommended range of VTF is 1.7–1.9gm. Though the cartridge can theoretically track as low as 1gm and as…
The differences between a great MC system and the Strain Gauge can make evaluating different pressings of the same album difficult. Right now I'm listening to the two new Rolling Stones boxes. Tattoo You sounds positively muffled and dynamically dead through the Ortofon A90, but through the Strain Gauge it sounds reasonably alive on top, though still dynamically dead. The life has been compressed out of the new records, though not so the ABKCO box of the earlier Decca/London-era Stones.
I suspect that the Strain Gauge cartridge's displacement-based operating system was in some way…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Strain-gauge phono cartridge with interchangeable styli (6 choices) and dedicated preamplifier and power supply (two 24V DC wall warts, no specifications provided). Styli supplied (both with ruby cantilever): SGS-5 nude line contact (standard, $399.95 if purchased separately), SGS-6 "Contour Optimized" nude line-contact ($499.95 if purchased separately). Recommended vertical tracking force (VTF): 1.7–1.9gm. Compliance: low–medium, depends on VTF, 10–16µm/mN. Frequency range: DC–70kHz. Effective tip mass: 0.30mg, SG-10; 0.32mg, SG-5. Channel…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: Continuum Audio Labs Caliburn, Cobra, Castellon turntable, tonearm, stand; Graham Engineering Phantom II tonearm, Ortofon A90 cartridge.
Digital Sources: Playback Designs MPS-5 SACD/CD player–DAC, BPT-modified Alesis Masterlink hard-disk recorder, Benchmark ADC1 A/D converter, Sooloos music server, Pure Music software.
Preamplification: Ypsilon VPS-100, Allnic H-3000, Einstein Turntable's Choice phono preamplifiers; darTZeel NHB-18NS preamplifier.
Power Amplifier: Musical Fidelity Titan.
Loudspeakers: Wilson Audio Specialties…
This morning I received my press badge for High End 2011. The show takes place at the M.O.C. Events Center (Lilienthalallee 40) in Munich, Germany; it opens on Thursday, May 19 and closes on Sunday, May 22.
I was going to write that I don’t know what to expect, but then I thought about it and I realized that I have some ideas: Long days, hard work, lots of hi-fi, potential communication problems, beautiful people, beautiful music, beautiful beer. And that, actually, sounds a lot like home.
The 2011 High End Show in Munich, Germany, will be the first hi-fi show I’ve attended…
Just moments after receiving my press badge for High End 2011, I received my copy of Vivian Girls’ new album, Share the Joy. Because I’m a big fan of Vivian Girls, I had pre-ordered this album upon Polyvinyl’s announcement of its imminent release. I typically stay away from pre-orders—too many times I’ve pre-ordered an album that, for one unknown reason or another, never gets released—but Polyvinyl makes the process easy, painless, and inescapably enticing by providing an immediate download of your order.
I was expecting the LP, a t-shirt, a button, and a bonus 7-inch…
While I was still basking in the warm, colorful glow of my Polyvinyl package, I received a copy of The Book of Audacity, written by Carla Schroeder and published by No Starch Press. This 359-page guide promises to help “build that home recording studio that you’ve been talking about for years.”
Inside, there are 15 chapters, including “Audacity from Start to Finish,” “Building a Good Digital Sound Studio on the Cheap,” “Transferring Vinyl LPs to CD,” “Authoring Super High-Fidelity Audio DVDs,” and “Configuring Windows for Best Audio Quality,” in addition to appendices on audio hardware,…