hifitommy
Super Member
the black or any of the grados with removable styli, NEEDS to be in a medium to heavy mass lest it launches into the GRADO DANCE. i know this because i was using an FTE+1 in my Grace 707 and it did the dance and i wish i had l the motivation to videotape the occurrence. viewed from the front of the cartridge, it was oscillating in a circle. i stopped the tt immediately, and gave it some thought and then added a one gram blob of black modeling clay on top of the headshell and then rebalanced the arm and reset the VTF to 1.5gr.
VOILA ! the dance was gone due to my changing the resonance point of the arm/stylus suspension material. using my other tt (a /rabco ST4 with a more massive arm) with an F1+ (equivalent to the current gold) with NO dance.
this is very much like my insistence that the ADC XLM belongs in a low mass arm. this is because the stylus suspension was so delicate due to very high compliance. putting an XLM on an arm like that in the technics SL1200 is begging for early failure of the cartridge suspension.
VOILA ! the dance was gone due to my changing the resonance point of the arm/stylus suspension material. using my other tt (a /rabco ST4 with a more massive arm) with an F1+ (equivalent to the current gold) with NO dance.
this is very much like my insistence that the ADC XLM belongs in a low mass arm. this is because the stylus suspension was so delicate due to very high compliance. putting an XLM on an arm like that in the technics SL1200 is begging for early failure of the cartridge suspension.