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Vinyl Asylum Welcome Licorice Pizza (LP) lovers! Setup guides and Vinyl FAQ. |
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Vinyl Asylum Welcome Licorice Pizza (LP) lovers! Setup guides and Vinyl FAQ. |
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In Reply to: Cart question - Empire 999/X - Keep or toss? posted by canon_fodder(a) on December 14, 2005 at 08:01:56:
The cartridge itself is very decent but the performance depends on the stylus you use with it. The 999 series was offered with an assortment of different styli. The best was the VE or VEX and the color of the stylus assembly is purple. The first 999 had a cone shaped stylus assembly then Empire changed the 999 body and it incorporated a more conventional box shaped stylus assembly, kind of like a Shure V15. Those early stylus assemblies are just about impossible to find. The later version stylus can be found but the originals aren't cheap when they do show up. Personally I wouldn't buy a "generic" stylus because most of them are "one size fits all" and in the case of the 999, the generic will most likely be the lower end stylus and it will not be capable of offering the best performance from the cartridge. I recently compared my 999VE to an Empire 4000Dlll and the 4000 sounded better all the way around. In fact it is up there with my Grace F9L and some expensive MC's. But again you have the stylus replacement problem. The original Dlll stylus can be had for around $90 but some would question the wisdom of buying a NOS stylus because of a potentially dried up suspension. MY NOS 4000 Dlll stylus works fine for me and MY NOS Shure M3D circa 1958 sounds great so I can't comment as I haven't run into this problem yet.
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Follow Ups
- Re: Cart question - Empire 999/X - Keep or toss? - DaveV 08:57:05 12/14/05 (0)
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