I'm siding with Netlist on this one 
Grado has always given the best bang for the buck in my experience. They always seemed to err on the ommision side, that is they never added anything nasty and every one I've heard (actually lived with the entry level cart for a while) sounded very good.
-Casey
Grado has always given the best bang for the buck in my experience. They always seemed to err on the ommision side, that is they never added anything nasty and every one I've heard (actually lived with the entry level cart for a while) sounded very good.
-Casey
rdr said:
Way Astonished> Way, Way, way.
I'm not sure what arem you are really talking about -- SME 3012?
We kept many DDs like yours around when i was selling hifi. There purpose was to let people hear how much better a good belt-drive -- even at a fraction of the price -- was.
Personally i'm not much of a Shure fan, and many better carts can be had... the Denon mentioned is a Classic (and modestly priced).
dave
Planet10-
What a coinky-dink...so did we to the same effect Sold many a Dual CS-515 at 139.95 WITH Grado this way.
rdr has had a paradigm shift in thinking here, and I'm trying to gently point out, and correct when possible, the short comings of his source. Of course there is only so much one can do with a mid '80's DD, but it can be improved significantly.
Agreed again. It always seemed the shops that were pushing Shure, were also pushing Bose. Arguing carts is a lot like arguing religion, and I try to avoid it. That said, I see the hierarchy something like this...
Sub $200- The best Grado you can afford..I would pick the $35 Grado over the Top Snot Shure personally, but again thats a personal choice.
Sub $500- The Denon 103. Audio Cube lists them for $250, but you need to source the step-up trannies, or lay out the lettuce for a pre-pre.
Sub $1000- The Shelter 501 ($850)..I haven't heard it personally, but when it was selling for $2500 under another name it was considered a "best buy" by all the review critters, and I haven't heard anybody that wasn't happy with it.
Just my opinion of course.
-Casey
What a coinky-dink...so did we to the same effect Sold many a Dual CS-515 at 139.95 WITH Grado this way.
rdr has had a paradigm shift in thinking here, and I'm trying to gently point out, and correct when possible, the short comings of his source. Of course there is only so much one can do with a mid '80's DD, but it can be improved significantly.
Agreed again. It always seemed the shops that were pushing Shure, were also pushing Bose. Arguing carts is a lot like arguing religion, and I try to avoid it. That said, I see the hierarchy something like this...
Sub $200- The best Grado you can afford..I would pick the $35 Grado over the Top Snot Shure personally, but again thats a personal choice.
Sub $500- The Denon 103. Audio Cube lists them for $250, but you need to source the step-up trannies, or lay out the lettuce for a pre-pre.
Sub $1000- The Shelter 501 ($850)..I haven't heard it personally, but when it was selling for $2500 under another name it was considered a "best buy" by all the review critters, and I haven't heard anybody that wasn't happy with it.
Just my opinion of course.
-Casey
In my distant analogue past I did try a lot of cartridges, Ortofon MC among them. My collection of old stuff includes a pair of transformers made in Denmark by JS, Type 0.32M,No. 75, (whatever that means) in mu metal cans, step up 1:244, 1.5 Ohm in, 90K Ohm out. I wonder if these would be useful? Anybody know of these?
valveitude said:
We sold a lot of ERAs, Regas, Connisoiurs (sp), and Linns. And a serious number of those with Grace 707s -- we were probably the biggest grace dealer in North America. We'd buy them 150 at a time, and sold well into 4 figures. And a lot of Grados. Denons, Grace, Supex (i still have a 901 here i'd be tempted to send off to Garrot bros)
In my day it was a $29 grado. Near the end of my tenure a $1k table was a Linn with a Grace 707 and one of these grados.
There is a wood bodied grado in that range which would be my choice, Chris has an Audio Note MM that is also really good.
Frank has this cart. very good,
dave
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The $35 was referring to today’s pricing for an entry level Grado, when I was running mine it cost $15 US (GTE+ I think it was called). It was running in a modified vintage AR with a used Infinity Black Widow tone arm. The whole kit cost me less than $200…for giggles , a friend wanted me to bring it over after I talked it up for a “head-to-head” with his new Linn LP-12/Ittok combo running a Dynavector something or other. The conclusion was that his rig , at more than 10x the investment, was better…just barely . In fact he offered me $500 cash for my setup before I left that evening..I declined.
Too bad you never tried one with a decent arm...
I have little doubt that a well built DD, properly tweeked, can sound darn good.
rdr- do note Cobra's record weight
-Casey
Thanks Valveitude. My JS transformers do have a high step up. I did some googleing and found that JS transformers were indeed highly regarded, but those were 10:1. They were going for several hundred bucks on ebay. At 244:1 (mine) and the .3 mv output of the Denon Dl103 the step up up comes to 0.0732 volts. That might be too much for a low level phono pre-amp (I'll have to check that). So an RIAA equalized high level preamp might be needed. And I am not sure how much transformer degradation would occur due to the high step up. It would seem that a lower step up, primarily to achieve impedance matching, with some clean amplification following, might be better.
rdr said:
Why astonished? The job of the turntable is to rotate the record at a constant speed without injecting motor or bearing vibrations into the mix. Take a look at this thread for some of the issues involved in doing so. The job of the arm is to provide no resistance to rotation in the lateral plane (so the arm can pivot), infinite resistance to movement at frequencies above 20 Hz. in the vertical plane (so the stylus movement isn't compromised by arm movement), and zero resistance to vertical movement below 20 Hz. (so that warps can be tracked). Given this set of (impossible) criteria, it seems to me that some (compromised) solutions would be audibly better than others. As to the price/performance ratio, of course you'd have to decide that for yourself; but I've heard what seem to me to be huge differences with different arms, tables, and -yes - cartridges.
OTOH, I say enjoy the thrill you're currently getting from your vinyl, and when or if it wears off, then try another front-end upgrade. Good luck with it.
Regards.
Aengus
Why astonished? The job of the turntable is to rotate the record at a constant speed without injecting motor or bearing vibrations into the mix. Take a look at this thread for some of the issues involved in doing so. The job of the arm is to provide no resistance to rotation in the lateral plane (so the arm can pivot), infinite resistance to movement at frequencies above 20 Hz. in the vertical plane (so the stylus movement isn't compromised by arm movement), and zero resistance to vertical movement below 20 Hz. (so that warps can be tracked). Given this set of (impossible) criteria, it seems to me that some (compromised) solutions would be audibly better than others. As to the price/performance ratio, of course you'd have to decide that for yourself; but I've heard what seem to me to be huge differences with different arms, tables, and -yes - cartridges.
OTOH, I say enjoy the thrill you're currently getting from your vinyl, and when or if it wears off, then try another front-end upgrade. Good luck with it.
Regards.
Aengus
Agreed on most of that. I am so floored by my rediscovery of vinyl that I have yet to exhaust my appreciation for my lowly Shure cartridge. I am taking a look at the Denon MCs now, and have to work out transformer & amplifier requirements.
My Shure SME 3012 is a well regarded arm and I don't see how I can improve much on it.
I would be convinced that a turntable other than my Technics SP15 is better if I heard one in a blind AB comparison on my own system. A difficult if not impossible thing. I will try the mass loading and platter coupling techniques since they are readily evaluated.
I am thankful for the suggestions and comments. Please forgive the skepticism.
My Shure SME 3012 is a well regarded arm and I don't see how I can improve much on it.
I would be convinced that a turntable other than my Technics SP15 is better if I heard one in a blind AB comparison on my own system. A difficult if not impossible thing. I will try the mass loading and platter coupling techniques since they are readily evaluated.
I am thankful for the suggestions and comments. Please forgive the skepticism.
rdr-
I would use your trannies for seed money..somebody needs them for their ultra-low output cart. I'd eBay 'em and see what they bring.
Aengus-
And boy do I have issues
Well said. OTOH (does that make 3 hands? ), implementing fast, cheap, and easy tweeks right out of the gate could extend the time before a major upgrade is deemed important.
-Casey
I would use your trannies for seed money..somebody needs them for their ultra-low output cart. I'd eBay 'em and see what they bring.
Aengus-
And boy do I have issues
Well said. OTOH (does that make 3 hands?
), implementing fast, cheap, and easy tweeks right out of the gate could extend the time before a major upgrade is deemed important.-Casey
rdr said:
No, I like that.
For what it's worth, my post "I'm very pleased with a nifty little Grado. Not MM" should read '...not MC'.
I own a stock SL1210 (DD) and a Thorens TD124 with SME3012.
I tried really hard to hear differences between both decks. I couldn’t. Of course at my age, my hearing is slowly deteriorating.
-=Hugo=-
I have to agree. I run a TD 125 with an airbearing arm - which tracks records even my sme arm has difficulties with, but when it comes to sound - there is no difference between a SME 3009/2 with a denon and the same denon on the air arm.
I had the rega rd 300 arm - which I found to be lousy with almost any cartridge. How to hear this? much more surface noise - up to three times and much more prone to enhanced sibillants than any of the two other arm/cartridge combinations. Makes some of my records almost unlistenable - and yes, mine was fully origin live tweaked.
BTW - the clamp on the vinyl feedback test - I definetely was not the bearing, as the test was done with motor NOT running. The test was done with a transcriptor hydraulik reference.
When it come to listenability of drives - any drive with a good bearing and consant speed will do the job just fine. My TD 125 is in feedback test almost dead quiet - no rumble, just the noise from the record surface.
It is a little harder to find the proper arm/cartridge combination.
From my experience - I know there are some that disagree - the MC DL 103 is for the price a bargain that it is hard to beat - given a phono preamp with at least over 60db gain.
As for phono preamp - try to find a Stanton 310B on ebay - I'have two now, they have 66dB gain and are very quiet.
This is great! I'm just now diving back into analog, sans my record collection, which disappeared one day many moons ago...long story.
Back in the mid to early 80's, I had a Mitsubishi LT-30 linear tracking DD table with a Dynavector "ruby" and a battery powered QED head amp. I had owned two Technics (SL-1300 ad SL-1400) and thought my rig was pretty good.
I contacted some guy who was advertising on Stereo Review and he sold me on a Thorens TD-160 with a Grace 707 tone arm. Holy cow! The music literally came alive. I almost didn't believe it.
I'm starting back at the bottom now, with a Technics SL-BD20 and Ortofon OM10. Any suggestions for a sub $1000 table with arm and cartridge? I'd appreciate the input. I'm running an Anthem pre and power amp and Monitor Audio Silver S8's. Thanks!
Back in the mid to early 80's, I had a Mitsubishi LT-30 linear tracking DD table with a Dynavector "ruby" and a battery powered QED head amp. I had owned two Technics (SL-1300 ad SL-1400) and thought my rig was pretty good.
I contacted some guy who was advertising on Stereo Review and he sold me on a Thorens TD-160 with a Grace 707 tone arm. Holy cow! The music literally came alive. I almost didn't believe it.
I'm starting back at the bottom now, with a Technics SL-BD20 and Ortofon OM10. Any suggestions for a sub $1000 table with arm and cartridge? I'd appreciate the input. I'm running an Anthem pre and power amp and Monitor Audio Silver S8's. Thanks!
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