Is there correlation between cartridge tracking, detail retrieval and perceived brightness?

I realize this is gross generalization, but it appears to me from watching various forum discussions that cartridges regarded as “good trackers” are often also described as having “great detail” or being “analytical” and sometimes also as being “bright” or “forward”. On the other side, cartridges described as “warm”, “lush”, “relaxed” people often declare as “bad trackers” or “having IGD problem”.

Examples I hear about:

Audio Technica – good tracking, but too bright
Ortofon – good tracking, detailed, analytical
in contrast with
Grado – warm, lush, but mediocre tracking
Rega – warm, but IGD problem

Could it be that good tracking implies precise detail retrieval? On the other hand, maybe, some may misdiagnose more romantic, less detailed sound as bad tracking.

Has anyone else noticed this? Are there examples of cartridges that track great but are warm or not detailed? Or, bad trackers that are detailed, bright or analytical?

 

Shure Cartridges track great, tend to be "warm", roll off high frequency detail. But hard to stress with overcut grooves.

 

Very true. I wonder if by being an exception to the above supposition is the reason they have such consistently good reputation and loyal following.

 

Tracking is the ability to stay in contact with the vinyl walls. The lower the linear velocity (near the center of a record) and the higher the frequency and magnitude of the signal, the harder it will be for a stylus of a particular dimension to transcribe the transients from the groove wall. Elliptical styluses and others with fancier names are cut so that they will more accurately read higher frequencies. Due to geometry, large stylii just can't fit in large magnitude high frequency grooves. In combination with tracking weight and inertia, you can also have a stylus that "skips over the mountaintops". Simply, failure to track will result in high frequency sibilance and distortion.

The frequency response of a cartridge is more significantly from other construction design decisions.




I'll let you read the longer explanation where the image was sourced from; in particular, the part about dynagroove, where the record mastering compensates for the expected mistracking, is an interesting read.
http://www.vinylengine.com/turntable_forum/viewtopic.php?t=22894&start=30

True analog can have very high frequencies. In particular, vocal sibilance and instruments such as snare drums are atonal high frequency noise, and can be very hard to track, here's an example where the very hot vocals cause audible problems.

 

There is no inherent correlation between a cartridge having great tracking ability and it being too bright. If a cartridge puts out too much treble, it's because of other factors. The reason many people find certain Audio-Technica cartridges too bright is because they're often being run into a less than ideal load. They need very low capacitance (well under 200pF total) and/or a sub-47k Ohm impedance. Many Stanton and Shure cartridges of yesteryear could track anything but were often considered "warm" or "neutral." Some Signets fell into that group too and there were others. Also, IMO, there is no mistaking a romantic, warm sound for bad tracking. Bad tracking just sounds awful. There have been a lot of brighter sounding cartridges that couldn't track worth a darn too. Way too many to name but to start I'd take a look at certain lower end ATs and Ortofons. Plenty of 1980's moving-coil cartridges had a blazing top-end and poor tracking ability, which contributed to the bad rep MC carts still have with some people.

 

Outstanding post, informative and detailed! In the diagram, the larger stylus would not be impinging into the dotted line as shown. I understand the illustration for comparison, however the actual tracking of the larger stylus would be higher in the groove, somewhere between the red dotted line and the black line. This same stylus would still be challenged to track the shown frequency, resulting in sibilant distortion and general attenuation of high frequencies. Groove damage would also be the eventual result. The larger stylus also would be likely to skip over the mountaintops as you mentioned.

I agree with everyone citing Shure cartridges as warm sounding and being great trackers. Shure cartridges are very detailed on the top end, ultra clean, but still warm sounding.

 

Well it might be more outstanding if it were remotely realistic ! At 0dB 20kHZ as shown the stylus would have to pull nearly 10,000 G and trace a groove angle of 70 deg at 55cm/s, and would need a radius of 800nm to fit peak curvature. And a 7um stylus would show 70% harmonic distortion due to pinch effect. It's totally impossible, and not representative unfortunately.........even if well intended I'm sure. Realistic would be surprisingly shallow and boring, I'm afraid and one would reach different conclusions methinks.

 

I think it should be pointed out that some of these posts are referring to tracing ability. Not to confused with tracking ability. You can have a less than stellar tracer that still doesn't mistrack. The Shure V15V-G comes to mind.

For example, take the comment about the Rega cartridges in the first post. If some of them are known to have IGD problems even when aligned properly, that's a tracing issue. But the cartridges aren't necessarily mistracking.

 

A correlation between cartridge tracking, detail retrieval and perceived brightness? Yes, and not so much. If it were only so simple. Nothing, including precise tracking guarantees tonal balance or high detail. I think many unsubstantiated things are perceived, concluded upon, and remarked to.

It is safe to say that "proper" tonal balance is commonly a matter of taste, subject to controversy, and perhaps often misunderstood, or a poorly concluded upon affair in our fine hobby.

When does forwardness, leading edge attach, or high frequency detail become interpreted as "bright" or "audiophile like" in the negative tense? And when does lack of detail in layering, woolly bass, or congested lower midrange become interpreted as "warmth"? Or possibly just a slight imbalance of one or the other brings us to error to the wrong conclusion, lacking lower midrange = bright... when actually the upper frequency detail and balance are correct.

If a cartridge can't track though, there is little hope for accurate detail or timbre IMHO.

 

I take the images from that other post as merely illustrative, in the same way that relief globes in classrooms show mountains, while a real model globe would be smoother than the material it is made out of.

The RIAA curve gives over 40dB of boost at ultrasonic frequencies, so naive mastering without lowpass to audible frequency ranges can create an audio signal that would be unreproducible by the physics of vinyl, or where what is actually cut is challenging.

Getting way off topic though - the conclusion is that anecdotal "good tracking" is desirable, but not a broad indicator of other audio characteristics of a stylus.

 

Exactly. Real hf grooves are shallow in the scheme of things, even allowing for RIAA. They have to be !