Looking for a lowish compliance moving magnet

[goatbreath]

Hi,,after one of the lugs snapped off my Shure M97xe,,I am looking for a replacement..

The tone arm is a highish mass affair,,I have put an AT95e on there for now,but it's too bright and lacks bass,,it also sounds a bit uninvolving..First time the AT95e has ever let me down..The Shure was usually dark on other set ups..

It was really nicely balanced on my new Kenwood KD7010...The bass was spot on..Treble not rolled off..

Because of the quality control of the M97xe,,I would like to know if there is an alternative,,preferably something that is still made in near the same price range..

BTW I realise the M97xe is high compliance,,but the brush sorted that out..From what I am reading the arm and shell are about 18 gms effective mass..I'm finding it hard to get info though..

Any info would be greatly appreciated...

[dlaloum]

The AT7V is mid compliance same as the AT95, but a much better cartridge...

Other options in that range are things like the Nagaoka MP series, AT110e.

Also some of the pro/DJ cartridges are designed for much higher VTF (ie lower compliance... by implication)

Shure SC35C, Ortofon Serato... etc...

Do a search on a site like Turntableneedles, and look for styli that have a nominal VTF of around 2.5g...

You should be able to find styli that match that requirement for a range of common bodies... Empire 2000, ADC XLM/QLM, Shure M75, etc....

HTH

Bye for now

David

[goatbreath]

The thing is that I am looking for something on the dark side of nuetral..I have a few M75 bodies..What bothers me is how seriously huge will the tip mass be on an EJ replacement if it does have a genuine 4x7 elliptical on it...When I bought a replacement for the ed T 2 I had a 3x7 elliptical arrive ,Pfstanstiel,or however you spell it..Chances are if I order an EJ one I will get the same thing..I don't really want to go the way of the conical..The Audio Technica I imagine would be quite bright..I thought the AT 7 V's compliance was well above 20 cu's,,but maybe I am wrong..Also Audio Technica's usually are on the bright side,,the AT95e being one of the least bright...

I seem to have a conundrum on my hands..

[Ldg]

...I don't really want to go the way of the conical..

Hey, why not ? Don't believe everything you read, goaty. There are good reasons why conicals can be pretty fine, especially if you can get a quality one. Stanton springs to mind. I have the 500 on a heavy arm as part of my permanent setup at the moment. There's a good thread on the SC35C which has good reports. You could do far worse, and it fits the bill.

For reasons unexplained (intriguing and suspicious, IMO), you don't find many fine minor radius styli paired up with low compliance suspensions. I suspect the latter requires higher VTF which perhaps is a vinyl wear issue for line geometry styli. Which you don't get with yer conical/spherical. But this is mostly speculation on my part, but would explain it. And otherwise, it's such an obvious thing to do.......there has to be a story.

Besides, conicals are far better in their own right than popular opinion would ever suggest. And the tip mass issue you mention is negligible, totally dominated by cantilever and armature contribution. If one judged the S500 on figures of merit and sound, it gets so much right. Look at the cantilever, there's so much techically right about it, but not that audiophile fashion would ever tolerate ! I'm sure there are better examples in the DJ range too. And hey, I use one on a heavy arm as part of my permanent setup, for certain purposes it ticks the boxes and sounds just great......

[bubba45]

The Nagaoka's are very fine cartridges that work well or are designed to work well on the heavier mid to heavy arms and I think would fit your requirements.
I only have experience of the MP15 and MP20 not the MP10/100 or MP11/110 which do get very good reviews too. the ones I have tried are just about the best MM carts I have used. I know if you look on eBay Italy there is a seller with NOS MP11, MP15 & MP20 and on eBay UK you often get MP10's and MP11's coming up for sale if you don't want to spend too much to try them out.
I'd strongly recommend Nagaoka's for what you want.

[dlaloum]

I think most of the issues with Audio Technica cartridges sounding "bright" are related to people running them at much too high capacitive loading.

Remembering that AT's like 150pf total capacitance.... most "normal" systems deliver around 400pf.

In any case, I would expect that you could achieve the tonal profile you want with any MM cartridge as long as you have the ability to customise the loading to your own taste!

[Ldg]

In any case, I would expect that you could achieve the tonal profile you want with any MM cartridge as long as you have the ability to customise the loading to your own taste!

Loading variation is just surrogate eq. And tonal profile persists beyond eq. In the same way that microphones, or guitar pickups, retain definite character that can't be eq'ed away. In goaty's terms ! There's far more to sound and voicing in cartridges than just eq.

And, it's self evident that one can't create any 'tonal profile' just by altering eq of any MM cartridge. All one can do is fix eq 'errors' or accomodate a certain eq taste. The way sounds and instruments interact and voice persists beyond that.

Yes, the voicing of several AT cartridges doesn't suit exaggeration of hf arising from relatively normal capacitive loading. To my ear. And it's well worth getting loading right, not just for ATs, but any MM, as I see it. But that's not then a panacea to intrinsic characteristics of how the cartridge voices. The best one can hope for is restoration of some 'norm' of personal taste, like in application of any eq. It amounts to a few dB of hf roll-off here or there. No magic, nothing profound, just eq !

[missan]

I agree with LD, It´s good to have the loading reasonably good. In many cases though I have a feeling that loading is used to eq the whole system, meaning, it´s not only the cartridge we are listening to through our speakers.

In many cases the loading is a minor contribution as to how it sounds, and it doesn´t change much of the total character, IMHO.

By the way many ATs I don´t find bright, it´s more a sound of lacking distortion, also IMHO.
missan

[goatbreath]

I'm watching this thread I haven't disappeared..

I am meanwhile playing around with the turntable as it's an unknown quantity and using the At95e on it..Plus getting used to what it is like sound wise..I can hear cleaner information on the percussion in the tinkly registers on Tubular Bells,,the pitch stability is good as it has long deep notes on there too,,they sound really stable..My suspended's seem to have a bit more dynamic drama..Funnily enough I have took the AT95e off my Michell Mycro,,Maybe they stylus is almost unused because it has that bright slightly lower mid scooped sound I think you get from a new stylus assembly..I thought it had longer on it ,maybe not though..HMM!!!..The arm tracks way better than I expected..

I have also been doing my research,,it seems the Jico Shure M75 EJ styli are a bonded 4x7 elliptical..Now I have,I think it is 3 Shure M75 bodies..If I remember correctly this is exactly like the original,,the only thing is,,did the Shure not have a slightly different suspension from what Jico are doing..I remember when getting some styli checked ed's and Ej's and the guy asked me what I was tracking at..I told him up to near the 1.5 gms max with my ed..He said the ed was starting to show a smidge of wear and to put on the EJ and turn the weight up to 2 gms..He also said that he thought the EJ's were better than the Ed's..This guy worked in Russ Andrews Edinburgh for as long as I can remember..Pity Russ's is now closed..So I don't know what EJs really track best at,,But having a 4x7 profile stylus and tracking above 2 gms,,it kind of sounds like it would work like Shure's version of an AT95e...Also there are optional conical styli too..Plus I have also been looking at alternative headshells..

The headshell that comes with it is either plastic or carbon fibre with a metal insert,,but a substantially thick one in the centre of the headshell..There is no crackly mistrack sounds on difficult passages of classical etc..So it seems to be tracking ok,,but my curiosity is making me think..MMM ??? Should I get Sumiko Headshell ???..I read that the Ortofon one is too short to get the correct alignment..I don't know how good the present one is..but everything on the turntable has got gold connectors..The headshell hasn't,,although it looks like it on the bleedin picture now I look..HaHa !!...Any picture I see of this turntable the headshell is silver..This headshell is black..I also read on a German forum where the KD7010 seems much more common that the arm is silver wired..Logic tells me this isn't the original headshell.....Photo underneath in case anyone recognises it from elsewhere...Apparently the mass of the arm with the original headshell was 17.5 gms..If this one is partly carbon fibre or plastic logic tells me this one will be lighter than the original..I know I maybe over think things but forewarned is fore armed..

[Ldg]

.....By the way many ATs I don´t find bright, it´s more a sound of lacking distortion, also IMHO.

Yes, I agree. I've also heard recordings of missan's AT cartridge variants. They are very very good, and by no means bright.

[dlaloum]

The Headshell looks like a lower end Technics variant...

I strongly doubt that it is originally from that table.

I suggest picking a headshell based on :
1) Good quality construction (rigid, damped, non resonant)
2) Select a mass that combines with the arm mass to tune the arm/cartridge resonance. In other words for a high compliance cartridge, you can reduce arm mass by using ultr light headshells (I have some that are around 6g) - for a low compliance cartridge, you can get headshells that are around 18g... and everything in between the two extremes!

Depending on the arm and cartridge involved, the headshell mass can be a valuable tuning method

bye for now

David

p.s. I have at least one of that type of headshell and they are quite good - mass of around 8g
The Technics SL1200mkII headshells (metal) - tend to be around 7.3g, ADC and AKG magnesium headshells get down to around 6g on some models.

Sumiko headshell tends to be around 10g to 11g

[missan]

.....By the way many ATs I don´t find bright, it´s more a sound of lacking distortion, also IMHO.

Yes, I agree. I've also heard recordings of missan's AT cartridge variants. They are very very good, and by no means bright.

Thanks LD. The result comes very much from reading Your posts and using Your tools. I like them very much.
missan

[goatbreath]

OK managed to buy an ADC headshell for £20,,It comes with a cartridge body,,The wrecked stylus assembly with no cantilever is an ADC XLM Mk 2...It is the one with the straighter fingerlift so I am taking that to be about 7.5 gms..

Again I imagine the styli for the ADC are a minefield to replace,,plus they seem to be insanely high compliance some of them..From continuing to search I am finding that the original headshell was 12 gms and made of magnesium..Much like the Sumiko is I think..Except the fingerclip wasn't removable on the Kenwood.

[goatbreath]

There seems to be an uncontrollable runaway bass thing going on,,yet the ADC is the lighter headshell..????