Grado Gold on a Pro-ject 2?

[Fuseball]

I'm considering upgrading the cartridge on my Pro-ject 2 from the Ortofon 510 MkII it came with. I'm happy to spend around £100 on it, which is why I've been reading up on the Grado Prestige Gold. Does anyone have any experience Grado cartridges on a Pro-ject 2? I've heard that they can pick up quite a bit of hum from certain decks, so I'm a little concerned about that, and also that they are very fussy with their alignment.

Any other cartridge suggestions are more than welcome.

Ian

[lpman_t]

Hi Ian,

I am using a pro-ject 6.9 with an Ortofon 540 MkII and quite happy with it.I used the 510 too and it also sounded very nice too. I think 520,530 MkII will be better and satisfy your musical needs for a long time.

I had bought a Pro-ject K-6 cartridge at the time I purchased my pro-ject t.table. The Pro-ject cartridges,K-4 and K-6 were made by Grado,I dont know if company still provide these cartridges. I had a problem with the alignment of K-6 .Using the pro-ject cartridge alignment tool ,I understood that the needle of the cart. was a few mm.s frwrd and the exact overhang point could never be aligned . I asked the dealer to give me another K-6 or 4 cart. to try and the result was the same. I could never had the stylus rest on the correct overhang point with these cartrdges. I tried and used some more cartrdges on my pro-ject t.table ,such as Shure V15xMr , Ortofon Super OM 30, Akai PC180 ,Akai PC 200(MC) and none of these cartrdiges caused any alignment ,especially overhang!! problem.
May be these will help you a bit

Cheers,

lpman_t
Emre

[Fuseball]

Thanks for the advice.

Having read a bit more about the Grado cartrdges, primarily the tracking issues, I'm leaning more towards either an Ortofon 530 MkII or a Shure M-97 XE.

Does anyone here have experience of either of these cartridges on a Pro-ject 2? I'm after a good all-rounder of a cartridge as it has to be happy with anything from noisy alternative rock to ambient electronica (and most things inbetween).

Cheers
Ian

[mosin]

I happen to love Grados, and have never in 25+ years experienced any tracking problems. Still, the Grado Gold wouldn't be my choice. The Black sounds the same for less money, and the wood body Grados sound fantastic!

[Minnium]

I have Project2 turntable and using the supplied Ortofon 510 for many years and very happy with it. I also never have or dare to spend more on any expensive Ortofon.
Recently had spend on Grado Black and find it very quite during the unmodulated grooves. But lack any treble attack for that vinyl excitement as compared to the Ortofon. I found that carefully released the tracking force a little the delicacy of treble is back(by a little). Playing classical musics are very satisfying, for the smoothness of Grado Black. For rock and pop musics best is to stay away.
I also have no problems with aligned the overhang with Grado at all. You should use ruler to see the stylus tip in line with max length of your tonearm. I think this is the rule for all tonearm relative to the set mounting length.