Entré MC cartridge.

[docjowe]

Good day to all vinyl lovers.

As you may have noticed, I just found a Entré MC cartridge. (see gallery)
Does anyone know if Entre is still in business today?
It was originaly sold by an american retailer, but was made in JAPAN.
I have an article from 1979 in HFN, which says it's an exceptional cart...
Thanks for any help!!

[nat]

I believe they have been out of business for decades. But as you noted, they had a very good reputation. Its hard to know how age affects cartridge suspensions etc, but I'm curious how it sounds.

[starboy]

Yep, they are loooong gone.

Their step up transformers appear for sale quite often reasonably cheap using Soltear trannies. If I remember they had one with 2 impedance settings and switchable for two deck. Very nice....

Their gear had an excellent rep'...

Regards

[docjowe]

Thanks Starboy!

Are you speaking of the Lentek Head amp ?
because the Entre was imported by Lentek, at that time (circa 79/early 80's) ans frequently sold together.

Anyway, I have the Entré running on a SL 1000 and it sounds incredibly good, well in my sense, better than my DL 103 and DL 103R...
Only point I'll check is the input impedance, my Denon HA 1000 Head amp is 100 ohms and the cart's impedance is only 3 ohms!

regards

[starboy]

Docjowe

I presume your refering to the little battery powered Lentek head amp? The Entre's were way above that and I had a Lentek over a decade ago.

Entre had 4 passive transformers in their range methinks:-

ET-200 Impedance no idea.
ET-15 Impedance 3 and 40 Ohms.
ET-100 Impedance 3, 20 and 40 Ohms with separate inputs for all three.
ET-100 II as above with input choice of OFC or LC-OFC?

They go for about £100- £150 regularly and I almost got the ET-100 for a friend from Japan...

The Denon HA-1000 you use is active. Hmmmm... Passive man myself.

I'm sure you now have some thinking to do?

Regards

[docjowe]

Thanks Starboy !

Yes, I'll try to find these passive devices, althou I'm not very fond of transformers, at least Denons are not in the same league as the HA 1000 or the HA 500 Headamps (never heard the AU 1000 or AU S1). but anyway, I'll try.

[Gerard]

Here is some info: (you may already have it)

Moving coil 5.8g
Down force (spec) 1.5g-2.1g
Loading (rec) 10-500 ohms
Arm mass damping (rec) 8g-15g
£95 (1979) with Lentek head amp £145

"Upon examination, a superb 150um square rod naked elliptical diamond with 55 deg. cone angle was found to be fitted; the well formed radii were to specification, with fine polish and alignment.
Clearly this model is a front rank contender. in the trade it has established a repuation for consistency, and this taken together with the high sound quality rating, goes a long way towards justying the total price. "

Gerard

[docjowe]

thanks, Gerard.
I had allready some infos, the original leaflet was in the Entré box.
It says : 0.3 mv / 3 ohms / 10 dyne/cm compliance / 1.85 -/+ 0.3 g VTF
I see loading should be fine with my 100 ohms Denon head amp.

Thanks again

ps : sounds are great !!!