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For the past 25 years I've moved all my old cartridge boxes with me but never really revisited those old chestnuts. Recently I had been on a jag of testing a lot of new $500 to $800 low output MC carts. And, while doing some work on the TT I found that old box of TT parts and carts. In my old cartridge box I had an old Stanton EPOCH HZ6E and an old Audio Technica MK12SII. I tried the old Stanton but it was horrible. I wanted to try the AT but it was missing a stylis.This old AT had a replaceable stylis like a Grado. I still had the box and everything and inside there was a chart with 7 stylii listed that would fit the AT and they ranged from cheap to expensive stylii with ever better listed specs as you moved up the chain.
I decided to spend a little money and buy one of the better stylii listed on the chart and found an ATS12S for $55 at www.stereoneedles.com. The ATS12S is 3rd from the top and has pretty good specs with a Shibata stylis. According to the chart with the cart it has a frequency response of 15-45K and 26 db of separation.
We'll the stylis arrived today and I'm listing right now to my 25 year old AT cart playing my "test" LP that I use for such evaluations. All I can say is WOW. How can a 25 year old MM cartridge sound as good as this? I guess I had pretty low expectations but it sounds pretty good.
Any of you got any OLD cartridges out there that still sound good?
Paul Green
Follow Ups:
I have at least a dozen of them, and some would amaze the skeptics of this world. Ask Ray-o-Stat because he used to be one of those skeptics. That was before he put his Benz Ruby in a drawer, however.
Just to be clear, it was a 20 year old MC that dealt the final blow to the Benz. There is also a 20+ year old MM that nearly also sent the Benz packing!As far as I'm concerned, I have 3 tonearm wands and I no longer consider the Benz Ruby 3H worthy to occupy one of those wands.
For those of you that have followed my glowing comments about the Ruby 3H over the past 12 months or so, you would know just how much that is saying about the other cartridges!To me, it is looking like the cartridge business never fully recovered after being dealt a near-fatal blow by the emergence of the CD and the disappearance of mainstrean, mass-produced vinyl.
However, at that very same time a few companies introduced their finest ever as a last breath before ceasing production altogether, but no one even noticed!On the MC-side, I think that it is only now, that maybe we are reaching "par" with the cartridges from that era.
cheers,
Close to the Edge, down by the river....
-Ray
nt
The one cartridge that definitively hands-down beats the Ruby 3H in my system is the Accuphase AC-2 (a ZYX creation from the 1980's).The MM's that come very close, but lack a little bit in terms of fine detail are a line of ADC's that appear to also be ZYX creations from the same time period, the TRX's. All three have vanishingly low distortion and track much more cleanly than the Benz as well.
In the past, I noted that the Accuphase wasn't quite as good as the Benz (.7mv output) in my system. However, I recently discovered that this was more an issue with my Melos reference phono running out of steam with this .18 mv cartridge, than the cartridge itself. I now have a phono that sounds much better when tackling ultra low output cartridges and the AC-2 really stand out as a superb cartridge in every way possible.
cheers,
Close to the Edge, down by the river....
-Ray
I can believe it now myself. I certainly would have doubted it before today.
with conical low hrs stylus on Formula 4 Mayware, mounted on ERA Mk VI tt. Great sound.
I guess the '80s were good for two things: greed and phono cartridges. No make that 3 things: greed, phono cartridges and synthesizers.
Currently using a Grace F9E (ca. 1982?) on Garrard 401 w/Scheu Tacco arm. Waiting for a Denon 103R, however, and looking forward to seeing what I might be missing (top end transients, upper range of piano, and tracking of warped discs not what I would like). The old cart has hundreds (1000s?) of hours on it, as it was in regular use for about 10 years, and has been in storage for the past 13 or so.
My old AT cartridge replaced a Denon DL103D and it's surprising how competitive the two are. In fact, I would say this AT is competitive with a Shelter 501 MKII, as well.Has the suspension on your old Grace cart held up over all these years? On this 1981 AT the suspension is on the stylis, so by putting on a new stylis today I also put on a whole new suspension too.
What the AT does well is bass and mids... but, I'd say that the treble is a bit exagerated. It's nice and extended, but its not all that balanced. Imaging is good and separation is excellent. Plus tracking is good. The last MM cartridge I tried was a $600 Rega Exact and this blows that cartridge right out of the water.
Here's a thought too, maybe my phonostage does a better job with a mid level output MM cartridge than it did with a really low output MC cartridge like the Denon.
My phonostage has 60 db of gain for MC carts what kind of gain have you got for you DL103R that's coming?
Paul
I think the F9E suspension is a bit crusty, as it no longer does a very good job at tracking warps, even at the max recommended tracking force.I've got one of the $109 Denon transformers coming along with the 103R. Will be going into an old Monolithic PSb phono pre.
That should work. I had a "R" with a new Monolithic Monolithic PS-1 with HC-1b power supply. It worked OK, but was sensitive to power suply hum depending on where you put the unit.It was a bit shy on gain, so the transformer should help.
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