Grado Red Cartridge

[woodyg3]

I put a Grado Red Cartridge on my wife's trusty Dual 1225 after reading great reviews. Sadly, it sounded muddy and muffled in the mid-range, and it did not handle peak volumes well. It sounded like a tape recording when the record level is too low. ??? On went an old Ortofon and the sound was great again.  ;D Has anyone else had negative experiences with the Grado medium to low priced carts? Any fixes? TIA, - Woody  

[JaS]

The Grado's in general are fairly high output and cleanish sounding cartridges, so it sounds like either a setup problem or system mismatch. If the Ortofon is from the budget OM range then I would expect the Grado to sound brighter on the Dual rather than muffled, though worn records and its brand new stylus may make it sound coarser too. Did you set up the new cartridge using a decent alignment protractor - this is very important? Also has your Dual got arm height adjustment, it may be that the arm needs raising a little to get the stylus cantilever angle correct and lose the 'muddiness' you here. Of course you may also just not like the sound of the cartridge Best Regards JaS

[Piotr]

The Grados are known to hum when connected to unshielded electronics. The Dual (I think) is unshielded. What electronics do you use?

[woodyg3]

Thanks for your comments. To answer your questions: The Ortofon was not an inexpensive cartridge, just 20 years older. I took it off another turntable that I'm not currently using. If you factor in inflation, it probably cost more than the new Grado. The cartridge was well alligned and the tonearm height set carefully.   Yes, there was a little hum, and this cartridge picks up electrical signals of all sorts.  In fact, when I hooked this set up to my Harmon Kardon receiver,  I got an AM radio broadcast through the cartridge! ??? I think the bottom line may just be that this cartridge doen't match up well with my equipment and/or tastes. I am just surprised because I had read so much about how great this cartridge was supposed to be. Of course, I heard how wonderful the Grado headphones were supposed to be and bought a Sennheiser set instead because they just sounded better to my ears. Maybe I have atypical tastes...  ;) - WG

[euclid]

Check the condition of the stylus carefully. One little goof could have damaged it. Check to be sure the diamond is still there and the canteliver is undamaged. Too little or too much stylus force can cause poor sound. Also check the movement of the arm. Especially if the cartridges are different heights. There is also the possibility that the impeadance of the Grado is just not right for the preamp and cables that you are using. Magnetic cartridges have very inductive output impeadances. Cable capacitance and the input resistance and capactance need to match the cartride properly. Most preamps do not have adjustments for these very important factors. There is a slight chance that the cartridge is bad. This is rare but does happen. I once encountered a Stanton 680 that was bad. No stylus did well in it. All the stylii were fine in another 680!! ==================== I wouldn't throw out the cartridge, especially if you are anywhere close to the AM station. If you can't use it maybe someone else can. Unwanted pickup of radio stations is often due to a combination of factors. The hum may be due to the RF pickup. Or it may just be a sign that something is wrong. Shielding can be very important. Cables vary in how good their shields work. Also an expensive cable with gold plated ends doesn't necessarily have the best shieding. Unfortunately it is hard to even guess at the quality of shielding without tearing the cables apart. Grounding is often critical. Avoid ground loops. Check to be sure that the arm, shell and case of the cartridge are well grounded. If there is a shorting wire from one of the low side pins of the cartridge to the case try it with and without that wire. Try grounding the system in different ways. The best is wide ground strap to a very close, excellent ground system. This is common in radio studios but too elaborate and expensive for most of us. It is also usually unecessary. The system will usually be best when grounded but ocassionally leaving the system ungrounded is better. (This is an area where following the rules give you a much better chance of sucess but ocassionally violating them all seems to work best!) Preamps vary greatly in their sensitivity to RF. Some do very very well and others don't. Even some very expensive and otherwise excellent equipment is RF sensitive. I once fixed a Marantz (US made and very high quality) power amp that picked up my 40KW FM station that was half a mile away. I have also been able to play records without any trouble within 50 feet of the same FM transmitter and using a system temporarliy setup a few feet from a 5KW AM transmitter !

[mekanox]

The Grado Prestige red pick-up needs some running in, Mine sounded slightly muddy at first,but after 10-20 LP´S played it all changed. I love the Red on My rega P2 now,It´s very detailed on My system.

[woodyg3]

An update: The Grado Red now sounds very good. I made the following changes and tweaks: 1. Grados do not do well on certain tables because the motor causes a slight hum to be picked up by the cartridge. I understand that this sometimes happens with Regas, and I can tell you it happened with my Dual 1225. I put the pick up on a Technics, and now there is no hum at all. 2. The recomended tracking force is 1.5 grams, with a range of 1-2 grams being accptable according to Grado. I put a full 2 grams on it and everything improved a good deal. 3. I picked up a nice Rotel phono preamp, and WOW did that ever make a big difference, too. I guess it goes to show that not all equipment goes together well, plus a little tweaking can go aa long way. Thanks, - WG