Caruso Cutterhead Discussion

[Dub Studio]

Of course you may collect as much data as you wish it will than still remain as theoretical my friend

There is nothing theoretical about data. If you collect data, you get facts, not theories. If you measure the excursion of a head, you can compare it to the excursion of another head, as Flo was doing earlier on in the thread. Of course if you wanted to derive theories from the data, there is nothing stopping you, and of course those theories don't come from the data, they come from your head, but so do the results of subjective listening tests.

Of course, people's subjective opinions are really important, and its essential to get people's feedback on the way different heads sound, but alongside those subjective tests I think it would be equally useful to have a set of values to measure. If the sx74 is THE standard, why should that be so? OK it sounds the best, but why does it sound the best, and how can this be quantified? This approach has no less merit than sitting down and listening to the audio.

(The word empirical is an adjective, so its pretty meaningless without some context. It can apply equally to the senses (say in a listening test) or to more rigorous scientific analysis (say measuring excursion). However, empirical "method" is non-experimental, meaning its not used to test a hypothesis, its just an analysis of the facts at hand, even though (confusingly) the data itself may have originally come from an "experiment" or even an "experience")

[mossboss]

Ok now lets get down to some facts
around the 1100 SX 68 and SX74 heads where ever made
That is not the number that went into new lathes
Most of the 74's went to replace the SX 68 as it was a better head with more crunch etc
It was normal to have a spare head or two on the shelve those days
So you can guess that there was say around the 300 to 400 lathes as well as a spare heads on the shelve (just in case)
These heads where made by a team of 3 people at Neumann
There was the early mono heads for the 32's but not that many
The first attempt for a stereo head from there was the SX 45 a vertical lateral type of construction that almost none survives
I happen to have a working one and it is the only one that I have ever heard off
There may have been about 250 of those made
Now all up as an educated guess Neumann made around the 1,500 to say 2,000 stereo heads since their inception and that would be more heads than the rest of all the other manufacturers ever made
Ok now the head is a very important part
But that is not the whole picture is it?
What about what drives it as well as the input chain to the whole shooting box?
It all has to work together so as to deliver the desired result
Since no records survive in so far as cutting lathes from Neumann an educated guess would be about 500-700 lathes ever made from there as well
There are quite a few in service today around the world and a few sitting around museums as well as quite a few sitting around lounge rooms of super rich Chinese citizens gold plated and used as turntables
Rick at turtle rock mastering would confirm that
He can send you some photos of them He was instrumental in selling his own one as well as a few others
Another Korean gentleman made a career of it scrounging the world for them stripping them down gold or platinum plating them and selling them to these guys
OK Now
I would suspect about 300 still in service in studios a well as plants around the globe
About 50 buried in China and Hong Cong used as turntables
Besides the above there would be as a guess say another 50 in museums around the world
Private collectors most likely another 50 odd and gathering dust another 50 I know about 4 of them
So as you can tell we can account for more than 50-60% ever made
Now If you start counting the Grampians the Haecos, The JVC's The Ortofones the Lyrecs the Fairchilds the Westrexes and the Scullys that are around still in service you would not even count up to 100
Most of them where junked when the VMS66-70 was out in its standard form
In so far as the VMS 80's are concerned there was very few made and if we are to talk about the DMM less than 20 where made and about 14 sold
So sir where do you want to go from here?
The intellectual exchange about adjectives and verbs is fine however to apply an empirical approach to cutting heads as well as lathes the researcher has a very narrow field to work within since the standard was established by only one firm with about 3 heads that where and are the standard
If you discount the 68 than there are two heads The 74 and than the DMM and that's the whole field of research SIR
Just about anything else since than its a copy of the original design which includes the SC 99 and the Caruso
The point is that all other cutting heads where eclipsed by the Neumann heads and lathes by all and sundry apart from smaller studios that could not afford the hefty Neumann prices so they stuck to the Scully with the Westrex head and a sprinkling of a few Haecos and Fairchilds around the place
By the way FYI the latest westrex heads made had a Neumann mount on them
What does that tell you?
With the above I will now leave this alone
Cheers

[Dub Studio]

Hehe, you didn't mention the scientologists!

Hey, I am not disputing superiority of the Neumann over most other systems, and I am not asking how many were made, or who by, or where they are now. What does that tell me? Only that the system as a whole was more popular.

I am asking what practical means there are to understand and quantify how good a head is. Does anyone here know if there is a standard way of measuring the performance of a given head, and if so, what that might consist of?

[mossboss]

Sorry Dub man
I left this alone
Cheers

[flozki]

to stay technical :
1. and ultimate test. cut a lightbeam pattern. if it is totally flat from
20 Hz-20kHz i would say : head is not too bad.

(but i only have seen this 2-3 times. and the funny thing is only with sx74 in combination of ortofon amps....)

2nd check capable feedback. for neumann head at least 13dbs 14 is normal if head is in very good shape. 15.5 db.
then apply 9db's of feedback and make a sweep. feedback response should be flat within +/- 0.5dB form 20Hz-20kHz.

3. make burst tests.. 17-18 kHz sinus 4-5 waves. 1s pause another 5 waves. 1s pause... and so on....
riaa on, level just that temperature protection does not cut off.so pretty much:full power you can deliver watch FB signal in scope.. if the burst is still a sinus... nice head....

4. then you can go on: measure thd of feedback signal, intermodulation whatever.....

* but thats just technicaly. it does not say anything about the sound....
there you get inot same discussion as with solid state amps vs. tubeamps, loudspeakers, microphones.... endless. if you like it, you like it...

westrex head has always 2nd,3th resonance... but can still sound great.
some of the best sounding records where made with a technically terrible head. westrex 3c. brass torque tube. super heavy. tons of unwanted resonances... but maybe that was the reason why....

[Dub Studio]

Thanks Flozki, yes I am just thinking technically. For me, the initial goal in a transfer system is always transparency. Then the rest is a matter of personal taste.

So in essence we are looking at linearity of frequency response, transient response, harmonic / intermodulation distortion. And what about crosstalk between channels?

What exactly is a lightbeam pattern?

[tubefan]

Search for Buchmann Meyer or light pattern at the AES.org website under journal articles, or get the AES disk recording compendium volume 1. The example for crosstalk measurement with light patterns is in there, I know at least one is part of the discussion of the performance of the Westrex stereo head. Mechanical excursion limits, temperature limit, possible amount of feedback, bandwidth of feedback. Frequency of first higher order resonances of the moving structure (which affect the feedback). Sensitivity and impedance...

Usually you don't get to have all of these at once. Westrex is easy to drive and robust, has comparatively lousy feedback bandwidth. Neumann system has lighter moving structure and other differences, wider feedback bandwidth. A bit more delicate. Ortofon head has extremely high frequency secondary resonance, so very wide bandwidth and high gain mechanical-electrical feedback is possible. But it's delicate, the springs in the head break and the coils are easily damaged.

As flo said, none of this necessarily correlates to good sound consistently. Lots of amazing classical, jazz, and pop was cut on Westrex systems, and lousy recordings on Neumann or Ortofon based systems.

[mossboss]

This thread has come to a sudden stop
Reading through it the message one gets than it is very much Empirical
By the way I have read about the famous Buchmann Meyer light beam apparatus but never seen one
The Neumann lathe manual in my possession has a few pages on it as well as a photograph of it
Come to think of it it has a few pages of the original sales brochure there as well
It seems that Flo has used one Does any one else here has one used one or uses one?
Here is a description of the modus operandi

A quick search unveiled this citation

Buchmann-Meyer effect

10 Apr 08

These two German physicists discovered during experiments with sound recordings in the 1920s that, if a beam of light is thrown onto a disc record, the grooves produce an effect suggesting the branches of a Christmas tree, with the root at the last groove. They further discovered that the length of the “branches” is in direct proportion to the amount of sound recorded in that particular groove or grouping of grooves, and that the brightness and clarity of definition of the “branches” is also in direct ratio to the brightness and clarity of the sound from the relative grooves. Thus, a recording depicting a sharply defined image of a Christmas tree will give an excellent performance, no matter how improbable this might seem from a cursory examination of its surface in normal or subnormal light. And, if part of the “Christmas tree” image is dull and the rest bright, the bright part will provide an excellent reproduction of the recorded sound. A record giving only a vague, blurred outline, barely recognizable as a Christmas tree, will thus give only a very poor sound reproduction, and some records have been found with the grooves so badly worn by constant playing with blunted needles or styli, probably with heavy pickups or soundboxes, that they are almost ground smooth and give no Christmas tree (Buchmann-Meyer effect) at all. (Rust 108)

According to Foreman, the effect is “best seen from a 45° angle across the diameter of the record with a small but bright source of light on the same side as the viewer” (29).


Cheers

[Steve E.]

This is a fantastic discussion, which I never saw because it is in classifieds. Where should it live? Reference archive? Was the head ever sold?

[jtransition]

This is a fantastic discussion, which I never saw because it is in classifieds. Where should it live? Reference archive? Was the head ever sold?

Yes about a year ago.
Regards

[Steve E.]

I'm moving this one to the reference archive for now. Mods, please feel free to put it somewhere else if it makes more sense.

[mossboss]

May be you want or need to change the heading into something that reflects the contents of this thread so it is more meaningful to a search
Like Record Cutter Heads, The ins and outs of, or some such description rather than a reference to Ebay, Mr E
By the way on another completely different subject
The copy cat Vinyl Juice Forum put up some time back by the Rooke's of Transco Blanx fame in the UK has fallen victim to the dictatorship that run it Well it seems so any way
It is now Defunct or at least inaccessible to all and sundry If you search for it you get the main site but no Forum However there is a box for one to go there
But when you click on it You get the history of Apollo and Transco in glowing terms telling everyone that they are the best in the world like there are plenty of choices or a plethora of Lacquer Masters out there to compare them with
It really made me feel a bit angry
What a blatant misrepresentation of facts that is
They forget to mention that they are gouging all and sundry with their absurd prices for a $10-15 item
Still Monopolies or oligopolies don't last for ever
It is by nature that the greed of those in that position becomes their own demise
It is already a very lucrative game for the two players selling them at these absurd prices
People have two choices if the MDC product is available in their markets and not much else
And Todays choice is simple Take it or leave It is Apollo Transco one entity or MDC Japan
Dont worry about it fellows Apollo sets the prices MDC follows
What a lovely position to be in now days
On the next price raise which is most likely imminent there would be more than enough greed in there for others as well.
There is enough margin already no doubt about that
It is already enough to entice new entrant/s into the game
Mark my words I can feel it in my bones as I have seen it before
The issue will be if these new turks will start a price war or they will offer incentives or a better product at the same price with bulk discount to large users Who knows But a new entrant is imminent in my eyes as there is a greater demand for lacquers a trend which will continue and no doubt will increase when the majors kill the issue or production of Music CD as they have announced recently on the press
Cheers