antcollinet
Grand Contributor
Bear in mind you can upgrade your E to the ML just by changing the stylus. Will save a few $£ (around 20)
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Best Bang for your buck cartridge? Objective wise.
- Thread starter SmokedBurger
- Start date
The thing is buying a TT cartridge and or speakers is buying a EQ device that match more or less your personal taste for most not knowing or measured ever their listening room. Simply listening your self for instance by claping your hands will reveal reflection/reverb time.
Already on that basis imo you could more or less make a beter choice in TT cartridge speakers matching you personal taste. Reading those graphs beeing aware of logoritmic scaling the energie required/changing let say + or - 2 a 3 db could make already a hugh difference demonstrated in another topic where i measured my Bose Wave Music system III in my highly reflective living room.
Show Us Your In-Room Speaker Response
Never Mind - this topic has already been covered in another thread. :confused:
www.audiosciencereview.com
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spiral scratch
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I'd be careful with buying used. Someone had another thread about needing a scope to check tip wear on used stylii as the sellers' estimations were unreliable. I've bought several used cartridges with mixed results and generally gone to a shop and had them checked out before putting them into use. It's definitely a gamble, I'd take the "10 hours" thing to MAYBE mean it didn't get used much, but doesn't mean it didn't get dropped or had the cantilever banged into the platter. Who uses a cartridge for 10 hours anyway? It hasn't even broken in.
I have a RigB modified VM540 (essentially a VM 740 with threaded mounting holes and more secure fit to the magnet) The 740ML is metal bodied goes for a little over $300. On some players the stylus guard can create resonance issues. It did on mine so I removed the built in guard and it went away. Since your VM 95 has no built in guard this might be the way to go (either RigB modified 540 or a 740) since you wouldn’t miss it any way. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1010908649680494/ is where you can look into RigB if you are curious.
I would have to agree, I have had tremendous luck, but have also been burned pretty bad buying used. Even new has the possibility of defect, but one can return the cart.
Holmz
Major Contributor
Has anyone measured a Garrott Bros p77i cart?
My 540ml is also modded with the RigB metallic body. Subjectively, the difference is ... not that much. We need to have some measurements about it.
In my case I bought it with a VN40ML Stylus but swapped it for a ATN150MLX running at 1.5 VTF. The MLX uses a gold-plated boron cantilever with a Microline stylus. Sadly i had to remove the pretty built in stylus guard to get rid of a absolutely horrible resonance issue. It was so bad I could hear it from the cartridge over the speakers and through my dust cover! This is on a Technics 1210 GR2 btw.
OP
SmokedBurger
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- Thread Starter
- #30
This is a picture of the needle, not really microscopic but what would be your opinion on it?
Attachments
I use it on a vintage SL-Q2 and in a MK7 ... no resonances at all. Maybe something was wrong in the process of the RigB body change.
spiral scratch
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It has a stylus so that's good, other than that it's hard to determine anything else
To check the needle you need 200x scope and have a close up of the tip looking down at the body, a few different angles and focal lengths would be ideal.
I'd at least like to see a perpendicular shot of the cantilever with the cartridge on it's back to see if it's straight and properly aligned.
It's hard to get good stylus images, setting it up and getting proper angles, a short video might work better.
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DSJR
Major Contributor
I'd absolutely agree on that, but I have to admit I took two huge gambles recently, so I could get a Super OM30 in the system, it's safe tones suiting the deck very well I discovered (I think the modern 2M bronze 'version' has a 'funkier' kind of sonic vibe. The Super body came from a good Super OM10 (the 10 stylus is used elsewhere and tracks fine) and I found a low hours (as claimed) OM30 stylus, which fortunately, came spotless and tracks sibilances perfectly. The very low use I give my vinyl player, I'm delighted, but it's very much a 'Do as I say, not as I do' cenario and not something I'd particularly recommend unless the cartridge/stylus is known and from a trusted seller.
(a couple of old and worn Ortofon styli I have from other models sssssound terribly sssssibilant no matter how I clean the sssstylussss).
I once had a cracked diamond, a little piece was missing from the tip - so far on reliability. I wouldn't buy used without an opportunity to check beforehand.
Did you check lowbeat's sound oracle already? => For me there's not so much of a difference. Too little to worry about, actually. All my fear of missing out was gone, when I combined the (realative to digital, as the contemporary standard) quite abysmal measurement results on this site and the listening experience. A bit of a difference, but which would one declare as better? A sobering experience, as I grew up in the heyday of (ridiculously) expensive analog.
Best bang for the buck, really? The cheapest! And granted, it will do just allright.
If their was I wouldn't know for sure. Mine was assembled for me in the U.K by either Simon Clark or Gary Hargreaves from a new 540ML. It might be a machining issue or just from the fact that the suspension in the MLX styli is slightly different from the VMN40.
I see the VM95ML has been mentioned several times in this thread and I also will give it my recommendation.
I just broke my Audio Technica AT33PTG/II
and while I have ordered a replacement since I love that cartridge, I got a AT-VM95ML to tide me over. I got it for 130€ including shipping. This thing has no business being as good as it is. Of course the microline stylus helps a ton, but regardless it's so good that I would seriously question getting anything else. It's hard to justify money-wise.
My only complaints about it would be that the body doesn't have a lot of straight edges, which makes it hard to align, and it's a loud cartridge in the sense that I can hear the music even when the phono pre is off. Also, it's not the highest cart in the world, I had to lower my arm to the lowest setting and it's still not level, so check VTA.
I just broke my Audio Technica AT33PTG/II
and while I have ordered a replacement since I love that cartridge, I got a AT-VM95ML to tide me over. I got it for 130€ including shipping. This thing has no business being as good as it is. Of course the microline stylus helps a ton, but regardless it's so good that I would seriously question getting anything else. It's hard to justify money-wise.My only complaints about it would be that the body doesn't have a lot of straight edges, which makes it hard to align, and it's a loud cartridge in the sense that I can hear the music even when the phono pre is off. Also, it's not the highest cart in the world, I had to lower my arm to the lowest setting and it's still not level, so check VTA.
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DSJR
Major Contributor
I have an AT120E here (same basic mechanicals as the 530 I believe, but set up for 2g tracking as against 1.5g). My flip-down stylus guard is a firm non-resonant fit and I ain't removing it. I used to fit cartridges 'all bloody day' but older fingers and thumbs ain't as nimble as they once were and I have to admit I nearly had kittens recently cobbling an OM10 together, especially fitting the tags to the pins on the back with its slightly smaller diameter pins slightly too close together for comfort and the electric light made it difficult to judge blue and green markings as well as the little leads' colours - I also prayed hard when fitting a Rega Exact (ugh) to a Planar 8 last year, as the stylus guard is token only - so would suggest extreme care when fitting these things.
The RigB mount is interesting but expensive for a secondary source in a secondary sound rig. I have a Linn K9 metal mount body and also a K5 plastic equivalent (AT95-esque basic internals) and at the time (to much ridicule from our Linn rep), preferred the less 'strident' tones of the K5 body with K9 stylus in (naked Vital elliptical diamond profile). Lo and behold, the last production K9s had the plastic K5 body fittings and *nobody* batted a blasted eyelid at that (trying hard not to swear here)!