Choosing On The Best Turntable Cartridges

By Essie Craft


In a turntable, a cartridge refers to the transducer that is used for the playback purpose. It helps in the conversion of the mechanical energy generated by the needle of the record groove into an electrical charge. With the turntable cartridges, electrical charges are further amplified and converted to sound that is then projected by the loudspeaker.

A magnetic cartridge is made up of a tiny magnet that applies light amount of pressure to the groove in order to limit record wear and as well improve the playback quality. Similarly, the magnet is also used to generate a tracking force that aids in reducing damages that may be caused to the record groove. In addition, these devices require low amounts of amplification because they have relatively low rate of voltage output.

Generally, a turntable cartridge is designed in a way that it incorporates various mechanism of working in attempts of improving its functionality. The main types of this kind of cartridge include the moving magnet and moving coil cartridges. A moving coil cartridge often has thin wires and a tiny electromagnetic generator used for attracting the needle and moving within the electromagnetic field of the permanent magnet.

Generators are also used to produce little electric voltages since they only have few windings of the wires. This only generates small amounts of the micro-volts from the electric signals which are always consumed by the noise made by the speaker. As such, a backup transformer is used to bolster the amplification of the cartridge, which also serves to reduce noise produced by the loudspeaker system.

There are also other high-output moving coil cartridges that effectively perform to cater for production of high amounts of voltage. Moving coil cartridges may be very tiny precision instruments and expensive, but they are greatly preferred by audiophiles because they give better performances. On the other hand, moving magnet types constitute of styli cantilevers which have tiny magnets that then form electromagnetic generators.

The tiny magnets are placed between the cartridge coils and vibrate in line with the movement of the stylus of the record groove in order to generate electric currents. Normally, the tiny magnet is not attached to the electromagnetic generator in order to allow the record stylus to move in line with the tracking force of the record groove. Generally, the moving magnet cartridges often use a set of two types of magnet to enhance its functionality.

The cartridge has moving irons and induced magnetic substances attached to the stylus cantilever and used to dictate the movement of the irons. Similarly, it also has a permanent magnet placed over the coils and used to consistently generate magnetic influx. Given the specific differences in designs and prices, both the moving coil and moving magnet types are often evaluated in a number of ways.

The moving coil cartridges have low inductance and impedance, while moving magnet has relatively higher inductance than them. However, it should be noted that high inductance can also negatively affect the frequency flatness and linearity of the phase response. This implies that, in a way, moving coil turntable cartridges can be preferred to the moving magnetic types.




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