Grado silver on blue body - wow

DavidTT

Super Member
I own a longhorned/potted blue1 that I've posted about many times in other threads. Last year Needlestein sent me a retip stylus that included a .2X.7 elliptical and I really enjoyed the cartridge, but swapped it in and out of rotation frequently.

I recently put it on my PLX-1000 and loved it except for a bit of sibilance at the end of record sides. Under 20X I convinced myself that there was a small chip in the diamond, although I wasn't sure. In any event I lost confidence in it and decided to order a red2 stylus. When I ordered from the auction site, the seller notified me the next day that he had run out of red2 styli but instead would swap in a silver stylus. Cool!

The silver2 arrived today and under magnification I could see additional damping material on the cantilever, and the stylus body was a very firm, tight fit in the cartridge body. When I started playing it I could swear that it sounded tighter and better than the blue stylus. It's only been a side, but sibilance is noticeably better; actually, everything is better. This cartridge sounds so nice I'm going to consider getting a hold of a silver or gold body to see how good this can get, and this from a guy who has loved simple, cheap, conicals for a while now.

I'm pretty surprised. In no way did I think this stylus change would make for such improvement in this cartridge. I was aware of the legend of the 8MZ in these carts, yet this surprises me.
 
I own a longhorned/potted blue1 that I've posted about many times in other threads. Last year Needlestein sent me a retip stylus that included a .2X.7 elliptical and I really enjoyed the cartridge, but swapped it in and out of rotation frequently.

I recently put it on my PLX-1000 and loved it except for a bit of sibilance at the end of record sides. Under 20X I convinced myself that there was a small chip in the diamond, although I wasn't sure. In any event I lost confidence in it and decided to order a red2 stylus. When I ordered from the auction site, the seller notified me the next day that he had run out of red2 styli but instead would swap in a silver stylus. Cool!

The silver2 arrived today and under magnification I could see additional damping material on the cantilever, and the stylus body was a very firm, tight fit in the cartridge body. When I started playing it I could swear that it sounded tighter and better than the blue stylus. It's only been a side, but sibilance is noticeably better; actually, everything is better. This cartridge sounds so nice I'm going to consider getting a hold of a silver or gold body to see how good this can get, and this from a guy who has loved simple, cheap, conicals for a while now.

I'm pretty surprised. In no way did I think this stylus change would make for such improvement in this cartridge. I was aware of the legend of the 8MZ in these carts, yet this surprises me.

Listened to a Gold-2 the other day, along with the Black-2. Pretty impressed with the new Gold-2 cartridge.
 
I own a longhorned/potted blue1 that I've posted about many times in other threads. Last year Needlestein sent me a retip stylus that included a .2X.7 elliptical and I really enjoyed the cartridge, but swapped it in and out of rotation frequently.

I recently put it on my PLX-1000 and loved it except for a bit of sibilance at the end of record sides. Under 20X I convinced myself that there was a small chip in the diamond, although I wasn't sure. In any event I lost confidence in it and decided to order a red2 stylus. When I ordered from the auction site, the seller notified me the next day that he had run out of red2 styli but instead would swap in a silver stylus. Cool!

The silver2 arrived today and under magnification I could see additional damping material on the cantilever, and the stylus body was a very firm, tight fit in the cartridge body. When I started playing it I could swear that it sounded tighter and better than the blue stylus. It's only been a side, but sibilance is noticeably better; actually, everything is better. This cartridge sounds so nice I'm going to consider getting a hold of a silver or gold body to see how good this can get, and this from a guy who has loved simple, cheap, conicals for a while now.

I'm pretty surprised. In no way did I think this stylus change would make for such improvement in this cartridge. I was aware of the legend of the 8MZ in these carts, yet this surprises me.

How does the Grado not hum, hum, hum on a PLX-1000?
 
Because I had a PLX-1000 and since I 'm the guy that built the Grado Longhorns for Audio by Van Alstine, found that the table and Grados were not compatible because of hum issues, that's why. Poorly shielded transformer was the cause, also issues with the PLX-1000 motor construction.
 
Wayner are you still building longhorns for AVA? What are your thoughts on the new prestige2 series of carts? I'm also interested to know whether you've ever tried potting the internals on them. You're probably one of the most hands-on knowledgable people about the prestige carts, and I appreciate you and Marc for your posts here.

Maybe my "bitch" email to them made them actually fix the problem.
 
I'm retired from that now. The Grado Gold1 and 2 series teamed up with an 8MZ is a pretty hard combo to beat. Tracking was excellent, no IGD (at least on my tables) and it had the bass and midrange we all expect from a Grado.
 
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