howiebrou
Reaction score
2

Profile posts Latest activity Postings About

  • Hi Tony,

    Sorry I didn't see this message until now. There were no problems at all with the Grado. I believe that 6g or so is the lower end limit for the SME V so 6.5g was just okay. The Grado sounded great to me. Lush and smooth. In fact my recent purchase of a Benz Micro LP is after similar things.

    howie
    Hello. I have a question re one of your posts from last year (below). Interestingly enough, I am in a very similar situation to yours with a Grado cartridge. I am interested in Grado for their noted lush midrange, and was about to order a Reference Sonata when I started checking for compliance issues. Interestingly, I received an identical reply to the one you received from Grado when I wrote them yesterday about a match with my tonearm mass.

    I would be interested in hearing how your experience with the Grado cartridge turned out. I have a Graham 1.5t tonearm (11 grams) on a VPI HW19 MK IV turntable, and was going to run it through my McIntosh 6900 mm phono stage. My speakers are Sonus Faber Cremonas.

    So how do you like that Grado sound through the Mac tubes? Any words of advice for my situation? I appreciate your thoughts.

    Tony Roberto
    Shoreline, WA

    howiebrou06-07-2007, 04:36 AM
    Dear Turntable Fountains of Knowledge I require your help!

    I have an Avid Acutus TT, Mcintosh C2200 Pre-amp with tube phonostage which will take >2mV cartridges.

    I bought a Grado Master Reference High Output Cartridge recently so I would not need a new phonostage or step up transformer. I am new to TT so didn't want the extra hassle (or $).

    My intended arm for the acutus is the SME V but I heard that there may be compatiblity issues with the Grado, because it is quite light (6.5g) and the tone-arm is mid-range (10-11g effective mass). The SME V is a good match for the acutus which apparently favours rigid designed tonearms (as opposed to unipivot arms)

    My question is, what factors do I need to know when deciding if a SME V will work with the grado? Compliance of Grado is 20 (which I think is mid-range) and I read that this would be okay. Some others have said that the grado is too light.

    I emailed Grado and they said the optimum arm is 14g effective mass.
    I called SME and they said no problem!

    Do I return the grado (difficult) or am I forced to get another arm? If so, which arm? I would prefer to get the SME as a long long term purchase for later on MC use, with phonostage etc and since the tonearm costs a lot more than the cartridge and since this tonearm would work fine with most MCs I would love to hear from someone who is using this combo and is happy with it!

    Many thanks

    howie
  • Loading…
  • Loading…
  • Loading…
Back
Top Bottom