This page will help you determine your tonearm resonance, which is matching the springiness of your stylus to the weight of your tonearm. Ideal tonearm resonance is around 10Hz (+/- 1 Hz). This is just physics: it's essentially matching a weight (tonearm mass) to a spring (the stylus compliance). Think of a suspension on a car: hit a bump and with a good suspension you don't feel anything (the spring matches the weight), but with a bad suspension you'll feel a few good bounces because the springs don't match the weight. Just reduce the scale to a turntable.
This tool is for anyone trying to decide whether a cartridge and tonearm are likely to play well together before mounting everything up and hoping for the best. The goal is simple: help you estimate arm/cartridge resonance, understand whether the pairing lands in a sensible range, and compare options without digging through scattered specs and forum posts. It is meant to be practical, fast, and readable whether you are checking a single match or exploring a group of possible cartridges.
A reader's first question is usually, "What numbers matter here, and what do I enter?" In most cases, you are looking at cartridge compliance, tonearm effective mass, and the real-world mass of mounting hardware or accessories that can change the result. This page is built to answer that by giving you a straightforward calculator, a match explorer, and a way to see which cartridges may be better candidates for a given arm.
The point of this page is not to replace listening, setup skill, or judgment. Instead, it is to give you a better starting point and help you rule out obviously poor matches before you spend time or money.
Enter effective mass and cartridge compliance to estimate resonance. A common target range is 8-12 Hz.
Estimate arm/cartridge resonance using f ~ 159 / sq. rt. (M x C) (M in grams, C in um/mN). Rule of thumb target: 8-12 Hz.
Key: ✓ Verified From Official Source
Single match
Select a tonearm or turntable and cartridge, enter compliance, and the result will update automatically.
Match explorer
Best cartridges for this tonearm
| Cartridge | Res (Hz) | Status |
|---|
Add a custom tonearm (optional)
Specification sources (official vs third-party)
How tonearm resonance works (and why the 8-12 Hz window matters)
When you bolt a phono cartridge onto a tonearm, you're creating a simple spring-and-mass system. The tonearm effective mass is the"mass" part, and the cartridge's dynamic compliance is the "spring" part. Every spring-and-mass system has a natural resonance frequency. In a turntable setup, that resonance shows up as a slow wobble or vibration of the arm/cartridge system, usually somewhere below the audible band.
The goal is to land that resonance in a safe "gap" between two problems: record energy on the low end, and bass music content on the high end. A commonly recommended target is roughly 8-12 Hz. If resonance is too low (say ~5-7 Hz), the system can get excited by warped records, off-center pressings, or bouncy floors, sometimes causing visible woofer pumping or mistracking. If resonance is too high (say ~13-16 Hz), it can start to overlap with musical bass energy, which can blur bass definition and reduce tracking stability.
This calculator helps you estimate resonance using the specs you can actually find: effective mass (arm + headshell) and cartridge compliance. It's an estimate, real-world resonance also depends on things like mounting hardware weight, damping (if your arm has it), and how compliance is measured. Still, it's a very practical first-pass check when you're swapping cartridges or comparing arms.
- Start with known specs: pick a tonearm/turntable and cartridge from the lists, or enter your own values.
- Be consistent about compliance frequency: some manufacturers publish compliance at 10 Hz, others at 100 Hz. (That's why you'll see a 10 Hz / 100 Hz option.)
- Use the result as guidance: if you're close to the target band, you're typically fine. If you're far outside it, consider a lighter/heavier headshell, a different cartridge compliance, or a different arm mass.
About the built-in database
The dropdowns on this page are powered by a built-in reference database of popular cartridges and tonearms/turntables. It's designed to make matching faster: instead of hunting for specs across multiple tabs, you can select an item and the calculator will prefill the key values (effective mass or compliance) used in the resonance estimate. You can still override any field-think of the database as a time-saving starting point, not a lock-in.
The database also helps normalize messy real-world spec sheets. Cartridge compliance is sometimes stated at different test frequencies (commonly 10 Hz or 100 Hz), and effective mass may be listed for the arm alone or for an arm + stock headshell. In this revision, the calculator uses separate paths for 10 Hz and 100 Hz compliance: @10 Hz uses the value as-is; @100 Hz applies the 100->10 Hz factor (default 1.7) to estimate the 10 Hz equivalent. Where a spec is missing or ambiguous, the page may include a note in the reference entry. If you have exact weights or measured resonance from your own setup, entering your real values will always beat a generic spec.
Browse all included makes and models (searchable table)
Use the search box to filter by brand, model, or category. This table lists everything currently bundled into the page's built-in reference database.
| Category | Brand | Model | Key spec |
|---|---|---|---|
| Runtime records are loaded from the embedded normalized data arrays. | |||
Don't see your gear? You can still use the calculator by choosing Custom and entering effective mass/compliance manually.