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I'm helping a friend with his Fisher console. It has a Perpetuum-Ebner changer which I have been working on. Several shafts were frozen in their bearings, but that's all done now.The problem is the phono cartridge. It's a Pickering XV-15/400E, and the stylus is broken off the cantelever. Too bad, that was a nice cartridge.
I just did a Google search with no luck. The Stanton 681 series will fit that body, but I'm out of date on current models. Does anyone have specs on the 680AL cart. I can get a replacement for those.
The other possibility is a Shure or AT model.
I'd like to keep the cost down and the cartridge needs to track at around 1.5-3 grams.
Follow Ups:
FYI, most of the Stanton 680 & 681 series, as well as the 881 series of stylii will fit your friend's XV-15 ! So, the cheap and plentiful 680EL .4 x .7 mil is a shoe-in, as well as the 681EEE stylii, for your applications. That 680AL should be fine, too, if the tracking forces are appropriate.
The comment about a conical/spherical used at higher tracking forces than an elliptical, yet wearing records less, is very true.
The MicroLine, FineLine, Micro Ridge etc. tips are designed for impeccably clean LPs, not 45s or older LPs. Those fine line tips can be quite harsh and bright sounding, compared to an elliptical or spherical.
Pickering/Stanton versus Shure is always an easy choice for me.
The Shures can track nicely, but they have no depth, or warmth, compared to the Pickering/Stantons. Warmth means sweeter, and soundstage is very important to many of us. An old console will benefit from a cart that will throw some good imagery, like that XV-15. Happy Listening...
I know for a fact that a Stanton 681 stylus assembly won't work in a Stanton 881 body (bought one by mistake and found out the hard way) so I don't see how they can BOTH be interchangeable with the Pickering. This is not to say that the 680/1 assemblies won't work.
magnetics of the 881 cartridge and not the stylus.the 681 stylus will fit in the 881 cartridge but will play at a much lower output.
The shape of the 681 stylus assembly (the plastic part) made it impossible to fit properly into my 881 cartridge body. Maybe one or the other has changed, but that was my experience. I had ordered the 681 stylus assembly by mistake, and the seller concurred that they were not compatible and swapped it for an 881 assembly. This was at least a dozen years ago.
Thanks!You're quite right about the wear vs tracking force and radius issue. Years ago I ran calcualtions on the Hertzian stresses in the vinyl and a 0.2 mil side radius at 1 gram has significantly higher stress than a 0.6 mil at 3 grams. I also ran a test comparison using three brand new copies of the same LP. One was kept as a reference, one was played at 1.5 grams with a Shure M91ED, and the other with a Stanton 500E at 3 grams. The played LP's were compared to the reference after 1, 5, 10, 15, 25, and 50 plays. I only played the inner bands, which took about 6 minutes. Even at 5 plays, the 500E was noticeably cleaner in the highs. After the 50 plays on each, they were rested overnight and again compared to the reference. The record played with the 500E was nearly as good as the reference, having recovered overnight. The one played with the M91ED was better, but never recovered nearly as much as the 500E, and there was noticeable permanent damage.
I know you wouldn't play an LP that way, time after time with no rest between plays, but it did confirm the substance of my calculations. It also shows the ability of vinyl to recover it's shape after plastic deformation, given sufficient time. provided, of course, it's not deformed too far.
To get the repeat play, I used a Dual 1229, with the changer spindle in place and a 45 RPM adapter on the top of the spindle. Since the "tree" type spindle couldn't drop the thick 45 adapter, it always sensed a record in place and would repeat play, thinking it was the next record. The size was set to 7", so only the inner groves were played.
Wow, that was quite an experiment ! Don't try that at home with cherished discs, friends. I can only imagine what the newer breed of micro line, fine line, hyper elliptical, Shibata, Van den Hul
et. al. would do to records with repeated playings.
Some spherical tipped cartridges are quite pleasantly surprising in their high frequency detail. I have an affinity for early 1960s stero cartridges by B&O, Elac, Empire, Fairchild, Ortofon, Pickering/Stanton & more; all with their, supposedly inferior, spherical tips. Sure, some of the later ellipticals are excellent as well, but not necessarily "better."
I recently became a "convert" to spherical when I started using a Denon DL-103. It's easily one of the best sounding and performing cartridges I've ever used
Aha, another spherical fan!I tried several over the years, but always had a fond spot for the Pickering XV-15/350 and the Stanton 681A. But I also liked the old Empire 888P, and the Shure M75B type II. I much preferred the M75B II to the M91ED.
The biggest problem with the line contact cartridges you mentioned (Shibata et al) is that the stylus has to be perfectly aligned in the roll axis. And even if it starts that way, if the anti-skate is off by even a small amount, the skating force tends to rotate the cantilever in its mount over a period of time.
I used to love that 681A myself, when I was constantly spinning 45s.
That Empire 888 is excellent, and currently very reasonably priced.
The later 888SE/TE ellipticals are outstanding all arounders. They are lightning fast, with huge soundstage effects.
The M91ED is even preferred by many, over the V15 III & IV. I like the M91E and M93E, as well, but Shures rarely have good imaging qualities, plus their bass is sometimes anemic, compared to the Pickerings and Empires and B&Os...
Fine Line tips can be great for very clean LPs. That seems to be their downfall, as very clean records get dirty as they spin. I always seem to prefer the normal ellipticals and sphericals. Your cause/effect re:antiskating is interesting. If you were a stereo buff in the '70s and '80s, do you remember all the tilted stylii that still sounded like okay stereo ? Fine Line tips might become a chisel if alignment is not close to perfect. Perfect alignment is tough to achieve in the real world, especially considering all the normally warped Lps we use. I guess that is why, in the real world, the elliptical and spherical have so many more devotees.
It is clearly another great example of how theory and reality differ. In theory, micro ridge and fine line should be better. But, in practice, in the real world, ellipticals can do a better job.
Again, practice modifies and even disproves the theory, while the theory simply guides us.
I am amazed at the newer tube eqpmt buyers, that believe new is better, in transformers and tubes, and cartridges ! There are still early stereo cartridges, that compete and win. Try an Elac 222, B&O SP 2-12, Fairchild SM-1 or SM-2, Pickering/Stanton 380, or Ortofon SPU spherical/SPE elliptical. Save your money for the real vintage stuff, and enjoy... while saving cash for the real tubes...
On Shures, I found they got a lot better with proper capacitive loading. I built a little in-line box with a switch to add capacitance. A lot of the later tables had low capacitance wiring because of CD-4requirements and they had too little for the Shures. That was true of Pickerings and Stantons, too; but they seemed less bothered. My favorite Shure was the M95HE. I know it was line contact, but it had the best sound to my ears.On one of our informal listening sessions, a bunch of us (9 or 10) were comparing cartridges. Greg, the local shop owner stopped in and brought an AKG P8ES. We all thought it sounded exactly like the Pickering XV-15/350 spherical and none of us could tell them apart, except Greg. He picked out the AKG every time.
I loved my old mono Fairchild with the rotating ferrite rod, but it wasn't good for stereo records as it had no vertical compliance. I liked the old Shure M3/N7D combo. The AT13Ea was their best, I thought.
Thanks to all. I looked up and old friend and he let me pick through his cartdidge box. I came up with a Shure M75 body and will pickup a Shure N75EJ, type II stylus from Radio Shack. 1.5-3 grams with a 0.4 x 0.7 mil stylus and very high trackability ratings. One of my old favorites. He also had a couple of Pickering bodies with the D3000 stylus (XSV-3000 cart) but I think the tracking force is too low and the compliance too high for that arm and table.
Jerry,I just installed an AT440MLa on my Dual CS 5000. I'm tracking it at 1.4 grams and it recommended range goes up to 1.8 However, it may be a bit too light.
It is a good performer and is a microline. And, at around $90 it is a real bargin.
KABUSA.com specializes in Stanton and Pickering and has both Pickering and aftermarket styli for that cartridge. He appears to be well thought of over at Vinyl asylum. Stereoneedles.com also has styli for that cartridge. Good luck.
Gary
Have U tried The Needle Doctor?They only have one Pickering model available but it doesn't sound like it will work for needs.
However, they have many Stanton models and replacement styli that just might work for U, not to mention they carry just about ANY manufacturer in the cartridge business.
Check 'em out.
Cheers,
~kenster
Jerry, I would highly recommend a Stanton 500ALII. It has a .7 mil conical stylus, tracks at 3 grams. I know this sounds high, but being conical it has less ware then a .2 x .7 elliptical at 1 gram. These can be had new for around $30. I also think it sounds great with worn records, less noise then a elliptical.
-Dave
From Matelectronics. Although they have a $25 minimum order. But they may have other stuff you need...--Matt
"You know why is that?"
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