Best purchase in decades, even better than my AR XA for $15. Not because it was a huge bargain, but because of the results. The purchase of the Grace f-8L '10 has proven to be very serendipitous in it's ability to bring the Grace 707 to life in a manner I hadn't suspected.
Sure I expected great synergy, they were manufactured by the same company and this I got in spades, even surpassing the Grado Platinum match up, and it's still not fully broken in.
Oh, did I forget to mention the cart and stylus turned out to be UNUSED NOS!!!!!!!
Well, suffice it to say it's surpassing my expectations in every way, but it also added a huge unforseen benefit. My Kenwood KD500 is on a shelf inside a large tv armoire centered between my two 12" subs and main speakers and so suffered from acoustic feedback.
Installed a set of Vibrapods under the Kenny and problem solved.....to a point. Anything above the 12:00 position on the volume pot was flirting with disaster. I was considering rewiring the arm and adding some sort of sound dampener inside at the same time.
Installed the Grace cart a couple of nights ago and ALL feedback issues are gone. I've been regularly cranking my biamped Klipsch Heresys to 3:00 on the volume pot and I must say IT'S LOUD, DID I SAY, IT'S LOUD? WELL IT'S FREAKIN LOUD, and not a hint of acoustic feedback, just live in your face jammin, Hales is rockin the house.
Jammin some Chicago now, notice the volume pot position, IT'S FREAKIN LOUD, and absolutely no feedback. I'm sorta dumbfounded as to why just a cartridge change could have such a drastic improvement in this regard but I'm sure glad it did.