I have a question about DS Audio cartridge DS-E3 compliance - for calculating tonearm resonance - does anyone know at which frequency they are measured? They are not listed in specifications, but are included in Hi-Fi News October 2024 review as "Compliance (vertical/lateral) 11cu / 15cu".
I searched if there is any info on at which frequency are the compliance numbers measured. Non-Japanese are usually at 10 Hz, Japanese usually at 100 Hz, and to convert compliance measured at 100 Hz to 10 Hz (that most online calculators assume) you multiply it by 1.75.
Then I found this detail about DS Audio compliance numbers here on What's Best forum, in a topic about Grand Master:
"For. those of you who are interested, I did find out that the DS Audio Grand Master cartridge that has a dynamic compliance of 7 x 10-6 cm/Dyne is measured at 125Hz. That comes straight from Aki San the designer of the DS Audio cartridges. I had never heard of any cartridge manufacturer measuring their cartridges at anything other than either 10Hz or 100Hz. I wasn’t sure he fully understood the question so I asked him again and worded the question a little differently. His answer came back and he said “as I said, we measure compliance at 125Hz” and he even included a picture of the test record they used.
To convert a compliance measurement from 100Hz (in this case 125Hz) I also use 1.75 to get the measurement which would be equivalent to a 10Hz measurement. So, at 125Hz I guess it would be almost double."
So using this online tool I can calculate tonearm resonance in my system, for DS Audio cartridge DS-E3 and Kuzma 4point 9 tonearm:
Cartridge compliance: vertical 11 cu, horizontal 15 cu
Effective tonearm mass: 13 g
Cartridge weight: 7.7 g
Mounting hardware weight: 2 g
So if I use the option to input the cartridge compliance at 100 Hz, I get this result:
Vertical resonance 7.5 Hz, Horizontal resonance 7 Hz.
If I input the compliance at 10 Hz, but multiply it by 2:
Vertical resonance 7.1 Hz, Horizontal resonance 6.1 Hz.
But if the compliances are actually given at 10 Hz, the results are:
Vertical resonance 10.1 Hz, Horizontal resonance 8.6 Hz.
Actually all the calculated resonance frequencies are inside the recommended range, so it's not that critical. And even when falling outside that range, higher mass turntables actually aren't usually that susceptible to footfall resonances - that's how Kuzma can pull off Safir 9 tonearm with effective weight of 60 gram, and just notes "Suitable for cartridges with CU below 25- tonearm resonances will be in range of 5-7 Hz which is preferable".
Tonearm resonance calculator with handy 10 Hz and 100 Hz option:
https://alignmentprotractor.com/tonearm-resonance-calculator
(I have tried to contact Paul Miller from Hi-Fi News & Record Review regarding the article, but I didn't receive any answer)
I searched if there is any info on at which frequency are the compliance numbers measured. Non-Japanese are usually at 10 Hz, Japanese usually at 100 Hz, and to convert compliance measured at 100 Hz to 10 Hz (that most online calculators assume) you multiply it by 1.75.
Then I found this detail about DS Audio compliance numbers here on What's Best forum, in a topic about Grand Master:
"For. those of you who are interested, I did find out that the DS Audio Grand Master cartridge that has a dynamic compliance of 7 x 10-6 cm/Dyne is measured at 125Hz. That comes straight from Aki San the designer of the DS Audio cartridges. I had never heard of any cartridge manufacturer measuring their cartridges at anything other than either 10Hz or 100Hz. I wasn’t sure he fully understood the question so I asked him again and worded the question a little differently. His answer came back and he said “as I said, we measure compliance at 125Hz” and he even included a picture of the test record they used.
To convert a compliance measurement from 100Hz (in this case 125Hz) I also use 1.75 to get the measurement which would be equivalent to a 10Hz measurement. So, at 125Hz I guess it would be almost double."
So using this online tool I can calculate tonearm resonance in my system, for DS Audio cartridge DS-E3 and Kuzma 4point 9 tonearm:
Cartridge compliance: vertical 11 cu, horizontal 15 cu
Effective tonearm mass: 13 g
Cartridge weight: 7.7 g
Mounting hardware weight: 2 g
So if I use the option to input the cartridge compliance at 100 Hz, I get this result:
Vertical resonance 7.5 Hz, Horizontal resonance 7 Hz.
If I input the compliance at 10 Hz, but multiply it by 2:
Vertical resonance 7.1 Hz, Horizontal resonance 6.1 Hz.
But if the compliances are actually given at 10 Hz, the results are:
Vertical resonance 10.1 Hz, Horizontal resonance 8.6 Hz.
Actually all the calculated resonance frequencies are inside the recommended range, so it's not that critical. And even when falling outside that range, higher mass turntables actually aren't usually that susceptible to footfall resonances - that's how Kuzma can pull off Safir 9 tonearm with effective weight of 60 gram, and just notes "Suitable for cartridges with CU below 25- tonearm resonances will be in range of 5-7 Hz which is preferable".
Tonearm resonance calculator with handy 10 Hz and 100 Hz option:
https://alignmentprotractor.com/tonearm-resonance-calculator
(I have tried to contact Paul Miller from Hi-Fi News & Record Review regarding the article, but I didn't receive any answer)
