Introducing the Phono Cartridge Measurement Library

[JP]

Sony XL-88D

Another NOS example. This one is known for its one-piece diamond cantilever and stylus. I unsealed it in December of 2019 and have put less than five hours on it.

*EDIT 10 Nov: Corrected equipment info line and normalized both channels to 1kHz.

* TRS-1005 plot removed.

 

[Thomas_A]

It's one of those "detailed" cartridges I guess...

 

[USER]

Wowza, another heavy-weight champion! JP, are you going to bring down the resale value of these crazy expensive cartridges! lol.

It's a treat to see the most prized and sought after cartridges measured here. Pretty nuts, really. Thanks for sharing your TOTL collection.

Have all your 2H distortion measurements been mismatched similarly? You may want to try a second JVC TRS-1007 to confirm.

 

[aaaakkkk]

Sony XL-88D

It's fantastic to see real measurements of such cartridges!
Please post a graph with a crosstalk of the JVC TRS-1005.

 

[morillon]

Sony XL-88D

Another NOS example. This one is known for its one-piece diamond cantilever and stylus. I unsealed it in December of 2019 and have put less than five hours on it.

View attachment 325001
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beautiful old lady....more than the measurements,if there has been no fatigue due to age, it's listening to it that will interest me...never had the opportunity... ;-) comparaison with these old friends at1000 or denon 1000... ;-)
( even if sony talks about mini 100, with its 40 ohms..probably preferable, just like the 103 to go up to much more than 100ohm load.... see 470ohm or even 1k like denon charger for its 103)

 

[JP]

Wowza, another heavy-weight champion! JP, are you going to bring down the resale value of these crazy expensive cartridges! lol.

It's a treat to see the most prized and sought after cartridges measured here. Pretty nuts, really. Thanks for sharing your TOTL collection.

Have all your 2H distortion measurements been mismatched similarly? You may want to try a second JVC TRS-1007 to confirm.

TRS-1007 #1 and #2 are in agreement. #3 is sealed and I'm not quite ready to use it. #4 is the MKII version - haven't spent much time with that one.

 

[Balle Clorin]

Where do you Get A JVC TRS-1007 These days..?Nothing anywhere I see…
( I do not expect a reply in the thread..)

 

[JP]

Used market once in a blue moon.

 

[JP]

Edit. Cantilever in tube titanium - was that common among high-end stylii at the time? Boron and beryllium tubes were but titanium? I just wonder if anyone would ever make tubes of another material than aluminium again.

Technics used titanium tubes prior to vapor deposited boron pipe. Interestingly there are similarities in the construction of the X-1IIE stylus assembly and Technics assemblies.

 

[aaaakkkk]

Where do you Get A JVC TRS-1007 These days..?Nothing anywhere I see…
( I do not expect a reply in the thread..)

InJapan.ru — TRS-1007 — Поиск

InJapan.ru помогает покупать товары на аукционе Yahoo и из японских интернет-магазинов. Осуществляем доставку товаров из Японии в Россию, Украину, Белоруссию, Казахстан и другие страны.

injapan.ru

TECHNICAL RECORD SERIES/FREQUENCY RESPONSE TE... - Yahoo!オークション

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page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp

This seller had 3 of them.

 

[USER]

Sony XL-88D

Another NOS example. This one is known for its one-piece diamond cantilever and stylus. I unsealed it in December of 2019 and have put less than five hours on it.

*EDIT 10 Nov: Corrected equipment info line and normalized both channels to 1kHz.

View attachment 325217
* TRS-1005 plot removed.

View attachment 325002
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View attachment 325007View attachment 325005View attachment 325004
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Given the difference in the shape of the high frequency resonances, are the inductance measurements of the cartridge channels modestly off from each other?

 

[USER]

Sony XL-45
Click to increase size

Notes

• I was going to measure this again with further azimuth adjustment but I decided it was better to get it out now
• NOS, line contact stylus with carbon-clad (aluminum alloy) cantilever
• I believe that this was the first cartridge designed by Yoshihisa Mori for Sony (released in 1975)
  • He went on to digital and lead the SACD division
  • The resonance is tastefully pushed up past 20kHz
    • You can see the excellent engineering at work
• I believe this was two models down from the TOTL XL-88D shown above
  • Would love to see the XL-55 and the regular, non-diamond cantilever XL-88
• This cartridge needed more capacitance than the official measurement
  • Certainly the different test record accounts for most of the difference
  • But did using 47k instead of 50kΩ resistance also come into play?
    • These Sony MMs are spec'd for 50-100kΩ
• I'd bet my DIN 45 543 would show even better crosstalk results
• I have measurements of the Tonar replacement stylus that I will post in the future
• Another cute, compact cartridge from Sony
  • One of my favorites from my collection

 

[dlaloum]

Sony XL-45
Click to increase size
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Notes

• I was going to measure this again with further azimuth adjustment but I decided it was better to get it out now
• NOS, line contact stylus with carbon-clad (aluminum alloy) cantilever
• I believe that this was the first cartridge designed by Yoshihisa Mori for Sony (released in 1975)
  • He went on to digital and lead the SACD division
  • The resonance is tastefully pushed up past 20kHz
    • You can see the excellent engineering at work
• I believe this was two models down from the TOTL XL-88D shown above
  • Would love to see the XL-55 and the regular, non-diamond cantilever XL-88
• This cartridge needed more capacitance than the official measurement
  • Certainly the different test record accounts for most of the difference
  • But did using 47k instead of 50kΩ resistance also come into play?
    • These Sony MMs are spec'd for 50-100kΩ
• I'd bet my DIN 45 543 would show even better crosstalk results
• I have measurements of the Tonar replacement stylus that I will post in the future
• Another cute, compact cartridge from Sony
  • One of my favorites from my collection

Based on the scan of the graph, the resonance of the cantilever is just above 30kHz - same ballpark as the Shure V15V... that means effective tip mass should be roughly the same as the V15V.

I have trouble believing this was achievable with aluminium (albeit carbon firbre reinforced..) - but if those charts are to be trusted, then that is the case.

It should be an exceptional tracker...
Would be interesting to calculate the raw performance with removal of the influence of the LCR circuit to check that peak...

 

[dlaloum]

Sony XL-45
Click to increase size
View attachment 325256View attachment 325257
View attachment 325276View attachment 325261View attachment 325260
View attachment 325254View attachment 325258View attachment 325294
Notes

• I was going to measure this again with further azimuth adjustment but I decided it was better to get it out now
• NOS, line contact stylus with carbon-clad (aluminum alloy) cantilever
• I believe that this was the first cartridge designed by Yoshihisa Mori for Sony (released in 1975)
  • He went on to digital and lead the SACD division
  • The resonance is tastefully pushed up past 20kHz
    • You can see the excellent engineering at work
• I believe this was two models down from the TOTL XL-88D shown above
  • Would love to see the XL-55 and the regular, non-diamond cantilever XL-88
• This cartridge needed more capacitance than the official measurement
  • Certainly the different test record accounts for most of the difference
  • But did using 47k instead of 50kΩ resistance also come into play?
    • These Sony MMs are spec'd for 50-100kΩ
• I'd bet my DIN 45 543 would show even better crosstalk results
• I have measurements of the Tonar replacement stylus that I will post in the future
• Another cute, compact cartridge from Sony
  • One of my favorites from my collection

P.S. I have seen postings on VE stating that this cartridge performs very well with a Jico SAS needle fitted... I don't recall ever seeing the inducatnce of the XL-45 body posted? do you have that data? (or could you measure it?)

 

[USER]

L: 364mH, R: 364mH, 100% match. This is an extremely well-made cartridge.

That is interesting to know about the Jico. The Tonar replacement stylus shows very well the difference the cantilever material makes with respect to the resonance. My notes do say that there was an excessive amount of clicks and pops in the sweep recording. I take it Tonar is not in the same class as Jico.

This initial measurement is set-up wrong and I have to re-do it, but I'll show it unofficially so that what I write here makes better sense. I adjusted azimuth to the test record, which was the wrong thing to do here.

 

[dlaloum]

L: 364mH, R: 364mH, 100% match. This is an extremely well-made cartridge.

That is interesting to know about the Jico. The Tonar replacement stylus shows very well the difference the cantilever material makes with respect to the resonance. My notes do say that there was an excessive amount of clicks and pops in the sweep recording. I take it Tonar is not in the same class as Jico.

This initial measurement is set-up wrong and I have to re-do it, but I'll show it unofficially so that what I write here makes better sense. I adjusted azimuth to the test record, which was the wrong thing to do here.
View attachment 325369

The inductance places it at very close to the Shure V15V's.... so the similarity of the cantilever mass / resonant frequency, is then corroborated by the inductance similarity - with a perfect example here of parallel evolution leading to very similar highly neutral flat frequency responses.

As a side note - Morita-san of Jico, was (I believe) in his early days, part of the Sony team that worked on the XL... and similar design ideas appear in the way the Jico SAS styli are constructed.

Sadly the SAS does not perform as well as the original V15V styli - has substantially higher mass due to the solid core cantilever, and based on my measurements, it matches much more easily with higher inductance bodies like the Shure M95 / M97 family which have had inductances ranging from 550mH to 830mH depending on the batch/period. (another opportunity for fine tuning via getting a bunch of bodies, and selecting on the basis of inductance to stylus matching!)

Are there similar alternate members of the XL45 family with higher inductance that could share the same stylus fitting?

 

[aaaakkkk]

The inductance places it at very close to the Shure V15V's.... so the similarity of the cantilever mass / resonant frequency, is then corroborated by the inductance similarity - with a perfect example here of parallel evolution leading to very similar highly neutral flat frequency responses.

As a side note - Morita-san of Jico, was (I believe) in his early days, part of the Sony team that worked on the XL... and similar design ideas appear in the way the Jico SAS styli are constructed.

Sadly the SAS does not perform as well as the original V15V styli - has substantially higher mass due to the solid core cantilever, and based on my measurements, it matches much more easily with higher inductance bodies like the Shure M95 / M97 family which have had inductances ranging from 550mH to 830mH depending on the batch/period. (another opportunity for fine tuning via getting a bunch of bodies, and selecting on the basis of inductance to stylus matching!)

Are there similar alternate members of the XL45 family with higher inductance that could share the same stylus fitting?

The common thing in their design is a ring magnet, the JICO design is very primitive and resembles MC, where instead of a coil there is a magnet, and it rests on a damper, in addition, the design itself looks very bad, the magnet is glued crookedly, the damper is very primitive, the stop for the damper has a poorly processed surface (perhaps you can find geometrically more aligned versions and then the channel separation will be more than 20 dB). I disassembled two inserts from jico for Shure III, and one insert for Sony XL-45 (the Sony damper was soft like jelly and the channel separation was terrible 1Khz=20dB, 10Khz=16dB). I also disassembled the insert from Shure IV, its design was a work of art compared to JICO's design.

 

[Thomas_A]

Still, the JICO SAS/B Vx outperformed my original Shure beryllium stylus. The Shure diamond was on inspection poorly mounted, had skewed polish and a somewhat twisted stylus inserted. The symmetry of the JICO stylus was flawless. Perhaps the later Mexico-made stylii had poor QC. Measurably the JICO was more peaky > 10 kHz (but more linear overall), but had better channel balance, better channel separation (>30 dB vs. the Shure around 20-25 dB) and low distortion.

 

[aaaakkkk]

Still, the JICO SAS/B Vx outperformed my original Shure beryllium stylus. The Shure diamond was on inspection poorly mounted, had skewed polish and a somewhat twisted stylus inserted. The symmetry of the JICO stylus was flawless. Perhaps the later Mexico-made stylii had poor QC. Measurably the JICO was more peaky > 10 kHz (but more linear overall), but had better channel balance, better channel separation (>30 dB vs. the Shure around 20-25 dB) and low distortion.

In the original Shure insert that I disassembled, the damper turned into a thick mass, like plasticine or wax. What channel separation was at 10K?

 

[dennis h]

The common thing in their design is a ring magnet, the JICO design is very primitive and resembles MC, where instead of a coil there is a magnet, and it rests on a damper, in addition, the design itself looks very bad, the magnet is glued crookedly, the damper is very primitive, the stop for the damper has a poorly processed surface (perhaps you can find geometrically more aligned versions and then the channel separation will be more than 20 dB). I disassembled two inserts from jico for Shure III, and one insert for Sony XL-45 (the Sony damper was soft like jelly and the channel separation was terrible 1Khz=20dB, 10Khz=16dB). I also disassembled the insert from Shure IV, its design was a work of art compared to JICO's design.

Could you tell us the part numbers of the Jico styli you disassembled please ?
They sell cheap and very expensive styli