3D arm plus DV
 

Does the DV Karat 17D3 have enough compliance to use with a 3D arm? Arm plus cartridge will be 16g.

You’ll be ok - 16g mass and 15x10-6 cm/dyn compliance is 10 Hz resonant frequency. Perfect!

Fr = 1000/(2*3.14159*(effective mass*compliance)^0.5)

Tom

Tom,
I have read where Japanese cartridge compliance is reported at 100 Hz and they should be multiplied at 1.5-2 time for an equivalent 10 Hz rating. This is why it is so confusing to me.

This was years before the time of the 3D arms, but my old dealer had a HELL of a time getting the Karat setup to track properly on my buddy's VPI Scoutmaster -- and he had over 30 years of experience setting up turntables. It worked OK in the end, but took some serious doing and tweaking to get there. The Karat is apparently an oddball because of its extremely short cantilever.

My friend upgraded to an Ortofon Jubilee and was a lot happier. Still runs that VPI/Ortofon setup today, and he's upgraded almost everything else (I think he did get the 3D armwand too). He's also reported to me that his vinyl rig still sounds much better than his new PS Audio DirectStream DAC.

Let say the compliance is 1.5x - your resonant frequency will then be 8 Hz so still just fine.

I ran my 17D3 on my Nottingham 12” ace space arm whose effective mass is way higher than your arm. I think it is 16 grams but need to check. That would drive the resonant frequency well below 8 Hz where record warps become a problem. It worked great which is why I take the 1.5 to 2 x rule of thumb with a big grain of salt. Which is why I say you’ll be fine.
If I still had it mounted I’d measure the resonant frequency and then know the 10 Hz compliance, but it is not mounted currently.

It’s a difficult cartridge to set up properly due to the incredibly short cantilever. But man it really shines when properly set up.

Highly recommended.

Tom