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I have a new Empire P66E, set up on a Technics TT in the living room which i dont listen to very much, so i decided to swap it with the Grado MT+(pretty old eh?) on the linear tracking Realistic LAB 1500 i'm using. Since they're both P mount i figured it would be a no brainer, swap em & the new cart should sound better, right!? The new cart produced a lot of sibilance & noise's (static). I swithed them back & the problem was gone. So i'm wondering if anyone has any idea why the new cart sounded worse. I cleaned the record, & the new cart has only a few hours on it (maybe less). It's also sapost to be a top of the line cart (the Empire) with a tag that says $140 (did'nt pay that). Any explanation would be apreciated. Tom
Follow Ups:
Just kidding, Fred.Seriously Tom, as was mentioned you might want to check out some used gear for your LP's. You're probably shaving little curly-cues of vinyl off your records every time you use that Realistic.
All carts need time to break in, for the suspensions to loosen up. Some carts sound good out of the gate and just get better. Some, the AT 440ML comes to mind, sound unbearably bright and brittle at first, but after 50 hours or so, really open up.
The Empire might be one of the latter types. Give it some time.
Henry
When was it manufactured ? The suspensions in particular have a half life, once the material gets hard and loses it elasticity the stylus is not exactly going to be agile and track well, it can't. sometimes an old suspension will loosen up,and new suspensions be they old NOS or current production all need a break in as well, usually best to play your least valuable records for the first few hours.
And wait for 20 hours or more before making any judgements on the cartridges merits, some take 40 or more hours to sound the way they're supposed to, some sound really nasty for the first few hours.And you have to set up each cartridge to approximately the specified VTA VTF etc. values,and not all cartridges are compatible with all tonearms, you can't just swap cartridges Willy Nilly and expect good sound. They may be P mounts but,they still have established operating perimeters
Dont know the manufacture Date, but it is NOS purchased from Garage a Records bout 2 years ago. I'll try the break in tip, but the Technics has a pre wieghted arm with a little tracking force ajustment between 1-2gm (i think). The Realistic has no ajustments. Thanks for the tip! Tom
Tom - Modest MM cartridges and most MC's need to track at 2 gm's or more and those arms may never have even adequate.Not meaning to be a wet blanket or Buzzkill", but it sounds as if those tables,(particularly the Realistic) are limiting to the degree that being utilized in a Marine Sanctuary a part of an artificial reef would be a more fitting use ;-)
You can find some very solid and compitent Vintage table/arm set ups for $35 to $150, (oft times all they need is to cleaned up, lubricated and a few hours or days run in) Some worthwhile TT's are $10 to $15 at a Thrift if you get there first.Then get a new Cartridge, surprizingly nice sounding and cheap, AT 95E $30 110E $40 an Shure M97 XE $55.00 these are all incredible values have new suspensions and styli and maintained properly are going to allow you to preserve your favorite records rather than
attriting them more with each listen.With some of those el cheapo Plastic POS faux tables were nothing to shout about when they were brand new,now they're just really old el cheapo Plastic POS faux tables and nothing you could do short of replacing every single part with real parts except the nameplate would ever have them being even marginally adequate.
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