Audionote IO1 v Ortofon Cadenza Black

[walpurgis]

Hard to be sure from that, but I get the impression the speakers have some serious colourations.

[struth]

tis a tad hard and tinny at the top; trouble is that recording is mostly up the top. Dunno what that recording would sound like on another system; would have been a good comparison. Also much will depend on the camera's mic I guess

[petrat]

There's more to it than just incorporating any old electromagnet as well.

Do tell ....

[Barry]

Yeh, cos that youtube is the highest fidelity, especially when coming off a guy's cameraphone.

....and played back via quality(!) laptop/tablet/phone speakers etc.

Of course, which begs the question why do people make YouTube clips of their audio systems, when the audio reproduction via the poster's videocamera and the viewer's computer is so poor?

I listened via a pair of Sony headphones, so probably not much better.

[struth]

I did a couple of quickies via my iphone and it sounded better than that did. ..again though I would be interested to here that record in another system to compare

[pure sound]

Do tell ....

Material the (electromagnet) coil formers are made from. Shape of the coil formers. General construction of the rest of the cartridge including how the wires are dressed before they head off to the pins on the back Rigidity of cartridge body, presence of air pockets in cartridge body. Material moving coil former is made from. Choice of cantilever etc etc.

[petrat]

Hi Guy ... it's your Io Ltd that so impressed me a couple of times at Scalford, so I'd be interested on your thoughts on why it is so good. Is it the field coil approach, or is it just a better engineered cartridge? As often said, a magnetic field doesn't know or care how it was generated ... but I've also found field coil speakers that seem (to my ears) rather special, too.

[pure sound]

A magnetic circuit can be altered by the shape & materials comprising its constituent parts. The induction of a signal in a moving coil will affect the field the coil is suspended in, as will the shape of the pole pieces focussing the field at the moving coil. It's preferable not to have a magnetic circuit with odd shaped elements, discontinuities, inconsistent materials etc. The flux lines should run around the circuit without 'turbulence'. This applies as much to speaker drivers as MC cartridges.

Personally I think the use of the alloy Permendur for the pole pieces and the way they are shaped contributes a great deal to the efficacy of the electromagnet in the Io Ltd. But Permendur is also incorporated in the magnetic circuits of speaker drivers like Lowther's PM4a as well as boutique Japanese drivers by the likes of Ale & Goto. It isn't a new technology & it is expensive unfortunately. It does seem to be beneficial though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permendur

But other aspects of the design also contribute. The rigid construction plays a big part along with the other design features mentioned earlier.

[petrat]

Thanks Guy! As an ex-instrumentation designer, I do actually appreciate some of the potential difficulties. Lord knows how many unsuccesful prototypes would get binned before getting it right. Just wish someone like Denon had taken on the challenge 50 years ago ... we'd all be using field coil cartridges at £200 a pop, maybe.

BTW, I was going to introduce myself to you at Scalford, but every time I saw you, you were busy setting up cartridges ... hope you were charging for the service

[pure sound]

Thanks Guy! As an ex-instrumentation designer, I do actually appreciate some of the potential difficulties. Lord knows how many unsuccesful prototypes would get binned before getting it right. Just wish someone like Denon had taken on the challenge 50 years ago ... we'd all be using field coil cartridges at £200 a pop, maybe.

BTW, I was going to introduce myself to you at Scalford, but every time I saw you, you were busy setting up cartridges ... hope you were charging for the service

I did seem to get roped into a fair bit of that this time (no payments sadly ) but it was a nice opportunity to hear a few different & interesting ones on some very fine turntables. Regardless of that you should still have said hello!

With regard to magnetic circuit design I think it's arguably a good deal easier now with FEA & modelling software than it would've been 30 years ago when Kondo was designing that cartridge. I've no doubt that the internal profiles could be further optimised if anyone had the will to try and such shapes might be easier to machine now aswell. There probably is still scope for a good few improvements in cartridge design if the right people are motivated to try.