What are you Listening To Right Now? - and more

I grew up in the valley. 1st "real" paying job was putting smudge pots out in the almond orchards when these storms come.
Oroville/Chico was my hometown and the Sierra foothills were my playground. Most beautiful part of the world imo.
And if there weren't 14 million Angeleno's sucking down so much water, this state would have plenty.
Cue up the:
Sam Kinison was hilarious! What a talent... think of what he would make of the political climate today. I miss that weird degenerate guy (matches my weird degenerate sense of humor.)
 
Interesting...I was running an OM5 a few days ago and " sharp and clinical" would be a good description. It also brought any record noise out more. Pretty pleased with the Pickering but still going to try the Grado. I'm uncomfortable with the 3 to 7 gram tracking weight of the Pickering. Worried it could cause more record wear.
I've never run a Ortofon here but have heard plenty on a red at my brothers and no complaints. Different listening environment though.
I have been interested in the 30 as read it's a good step up from the 20 and after that I don;t know.
But the cart game has been fun and educational and expensive (cheap as possible anyway) and I'm going to sit on the Pickering's for awhile.
The needle takes a bit to burn in and I only run weight at 1.5g, brush off and 2 brush on. Pickering specs 0.75-1.5 on the XSV as it being high compliance.
Sometimes I turn it up to 1.8 when busy in the house during the day (slamming a door downstairs, washer on spin cycle, even strong storm winds will skip my needles here, not to mention foot-fall and bumps)
I'm not a huge fan of the brush, especially the thick bristled new ones (old brushes are like fine model brush fibers and do work to clean as I live in a very dusty and static area., And it does keep down the skips.... And skips scare me most for doing driver damage.,
Fortunately, the Dual and Technics engineers designed their tables for harsh physical environments like mine. Thankful for that. Other tables absolutely will not work where I live. Hard-tail and full independent suspension TT's last about one day before their feedback and incident skipping get them pulled from rotation.
What cart would need 2-3g? Pickering? Stanton? there's gotta be a thousand of either out there.
 
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I've never run a Ortofon here but have heard plenty on a red at my brothers and no complaints. Different listening environment though.
I have been interested in the 30 as read it's a good step up from the 20 and after that I don;t know.
But the cart game has been fun and educational and expensive (cheap as possible anyway) and I'm going to sit on the Pickering's for awhile.
The needle takes a bit to burn in and I only run weight at 1.5g, brush off and 2 brush on. Pickering specs 0.75-1.5 on the XSV as it being high compliance.
Sometimes I turn it up to 1.8 when busy in the house during the day (slamming a door downstairs, washer on spin cycle, even strong storm winds will skip my needles here, not to mention foot-fall and bumps)
I'm not a huge fan of the brush, especially the thick bristled new ones (old brushes are like fine model brush fibers and do work to clean as I live in a very dusty and static area., And it does keep down the skips.... And skips scare me most for doing driver damage.,
Fortunately, the Dual and Technics engineers designed their tables for harsh physical environments like mine. Thankful for that. Other tables absolutely will not work where I live.
What cart would need 2-3g? Pickering? Stanton? there's gotta be a thousand of either out there.

This is an NOS HP/AC-1. Spec sheet with it says specially designed for Harman Kardon. Calls for 3 to 7 grams. I may back it off little by little and see what happens. Right now the highs are not thrilling.
 
Interesting...I was running an OM5 a few days ago and " sharp and clinical" would be a good description. It also brought any record noise out more. Pretty pleased with the Pickering but still going to try the Grado. I'm uncomfortable with the 3 to 7 gram tracking weight of the Pickering. Worried it could cause more record wear.

Yea tha doesn;t sound right that heavy. Especially with the highs. Getting sublime highs off the Pickering at 1.5. It's the main selling point imo.
The Infinities do not lie at least when it comes to the highs.
 
This is an NOS HP/AC-1. Spec sheet with it says specially designed for Harman Kardon. Calls for 3 to 7 grams. I may back it off little by little and see what the happens. Right now the highs are not thrilling.

I bumped treble up over flat a bit and the highs are perfect. Only 3 or 4 hours on the cart/stylus so I'm going to play it for a couple of days before I try the Grado.
 
I bumped treble up over flat a bit and the highs are perfect. Only 3 or 4 hours on the cart/stylus so I'm going to play it for a couple of days before I try the Grado.
Oh 3-4 hours isn;t enough probably.
Took at least 2 weeks for my aftermarket D-3000 needle to settle down. Was piercing sharp and almost sibilant when new.
Had to back off 3db on the C-50 at first, though it still sounded decent with that.
Eventually the treble went back to 0 and it's fine (by my ear anyway) now.
Mellow'd but not lazy.
 
Oh 3-4 hours isn;t enough probably.
Took at least 2 weeks for my aftermarket D-3000 needle to settle down. Was piercing sharp and almost sibilant when new. Had to back off 3db on the C-50 at first, though it still sounded decent with that.

I bumped the Pickering back to 2 and the sound was distorted. Back to 2.5 and it's ok but I'm detecting slight sibilance.
 
I bumped the Pickering back to 2 and the sound was distorted. Back to 2.5 and it's ok but I'm detecting slight sibilance.
What model Pick is it? Something seems odd. Is it an old needle with maybe a hardened suspension?
2.5 is halfway to 78rpm wind up steel needle weight.
Once we used a cactus needle and cardboard to make a speaker and it worked ok too, not sure what the tracking force was tho.
 
I bumped the Pickering back to 2 and the sound was distorted. Back to 2.5 and it's ok but I'm detecting slight sibilance.
Hey I also learned with Pickerings they also respond to cart loading, unlike Grado's. Grado's can't tell any difference but you will on a pickering.
That's why I bought the C-50 last year. A quality cheap preamp with loading features and it has paid off for this cartridge alone.
I'm a drop the needle and rock out kind of guy for sure, and don;t get too caught up in the "phile" part of the addiction, but this makes a nice set & forget option to get the sound it can give.
 
Love Vonnegut...I can read his stuff over and over.
From Wikipedia:

Vonnegut said, "The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don’t acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead."

Somedays I think flushing Ice-9 down a toilet would do us all a favor...

(Oddly enough there is a substance called Ice-IX, but it's not what most folks think.)
 
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