Cartridge-Warming Lamp - Affordable Suggestions?
- Thread starter sonddek
- Start date
Rockmeister
pfm Member
I use one when the house temp is below 17/18 c. It does help I find. I bought an Ikea flexi stemmed thingy years back but see they no longer do it. A bit like the Navlinge here:
https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/cat/work-lamps-20502/
LED's?? Do they run hot? I didn't think so but those other designs would be good if you like them.
https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/cat/work-lamps-20502/
LED's?? Do they run hot? I didn't think so but those other designs would be good if you like them.
JensenHealey
pfm Member
Been into Hifi for 50 years and have never heard of warming a cartridge. How did that happen? Is it really a thing? I don't think a magazine has commented on the idea so far as I remember..
JimmyB
pfm Member
Drat @davidsrsb beat me to it as I was typing! If you live in a hot country you'll of course put it all in a fridge?
Yes it is. Never bothered myself but a clip-on spot-light next to the deck is something I remember seeing forty years ago.
Yes, sort of.
Like all light sources, the VAST majority of the energy used appears as heat, but as LEDs are something around 10 times the efficacy of old-style GLS lamps, you only need one tenth the total power for the same light output, so they also produce one tenth the heat.
Mike Reed
pfm Member
I remember too, and used to use one for my LP12 in the early eighties. Trouble was, it could induce static in records in various meteorological conditions and it also illuminated the dust already there.
Oddly, I've recently bought a clip-on LED light to inspect my styli in situ (fixed headshell, unfortunately). About a track on an LP is enough to get the juices flowing in a m/coil (and possibly others) in reasonable ambient conditions, so hardly worth buying a lamp for specific cart. warming, I'd say.. However, if living in an unheated house within the Arctic Circle I'd suggest your starting point should be a blow-torch and De Falla's Ritual Fire Dance.
That's why I've never bothered. Occasionally I'll let the deck play a side before I start listening but I usually don't bother. I just accept the ups and downs as part of life's rich tapestry ;0)
sonddek
Trade: SUPATRAC
Yes, my listening room is hard to heat adequately. I'm aware that playing a few tracks is said to warm up the cartridge suspension somewhat, but I still wonder if it could do with some help as initially it can sound a little edgy. I do suspect that cantilever suspension temperature can have a significant effect on cartridge performance, and this isn't foo, it's an expected behaviour of flexible materials, even in space engineering, sadly. I agree that LED probably isn't much use whereas a traditional tungsten bulb a few inches from the headshell produces a noticeable warming effect.
When you consider how much fuss goes into phono-stage loading, VTA, effective mass et cetera, warming a cartridge to a suitable temperature seems like an obvious step.
These kinds of inconsistensies may be a contribution to the wildly different opinions we read of different cartridges' performance.
When you consider how much fuss goes into phono-stage loading, VTA, effective mass et cetera, warming a cartridge to a suitable temperature seems like an obvious step.
These kinds of inconsistensies may be a contribution to the wildly different opinions we read of different cartridges' performance.
Tony L
Administrator
Surely cartridges are designed to work in the temperature range of a typical listening room? Humans have a comparatively narrow range of ‘too hot’ vs ‘too cold’, so I’d have expected any half decent suspension material to be more than capable of spanning that range. I take it no one is listening outdoors in a desert or polar science lab, so it should just work!
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
And, presumably, the side to sides, too.
JimmyB
pfm Member
THIS ^^^
Tony L
Administrator
I’d actually go further and suggest that if a real preference is heard by either increasing or decreasing the temperature (i.e. likely softening or hardening the suspension material) then the arm/cart mass/compliance equation is maybe somewhere away from the ideal. A correctly matched system should be perfectly happy at ‘room’ temp.
Not yet(?). But there is probably a market for a stylus warming device, with outboard power supply and mains cable upgrades to truly unlock its potential.
Why not warm the LP as well? I can see it now: a record warming oven milled from a solid billet of aluminum.
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Rockmeister
pfm Member
Well there may well be a breed of slightly overweight single gentleman who live without the windows open in various rooms heated into the mid 20s (which is where cartridges like to operate) who are free to be cynical here! There is, in another world, also a good number of us, Who prefer a cooler room. My whole house for example never gets above 17 because that’s how I like it! However the cartridge is about 10°C too cool at that temperature and sounds much better when it’s warmed up. It’s all to do I think with the materials which keep the cantilever in place but it may be other things as well. In any case it certainly works here.
Underweight, cold loving, septuagenarian, signing off.
Underweight, cold loving, septuagenarian, signing off.
chartz
If it’s broke fix it!
A joke, right?
Don’t tempt RA or any other belters
Now where is my purple Lumicolor fuse felt pen?