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A cartridge/stylus question

xpert54

xpert54

Lost in Music
I've got a couple of Cartridges that the stylus is broken off of. One is a Sonus and the other is an Adcom HC/E. The sonus has a replacable stylus.however the Adcom does not as it is or so I was told a moving coil cartridge.

I've done a search on both carts and not found anything usefull as far as info goes. Any one know anything about these carts or where I might possibly get a replacement stylus for the Sonus or if the Adccom stylus is replaceable
 
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www.sound-smith.com can probably retip the Adcom cartridge (wonder who the OEM was). Whether it is worth it the cost (which won't be cheap), I can't help you with.

My first hi-fi cartridge was a Sonus Silver elliptical. Sonus was Peter Pritchard's company after ADC (as I understand it). There is spotty evidence on teh entireweb that there may be some Sonus cartridge and/or styli available, but I don't know for sure. I do have a couple of old styli from the Silver. The suspension elastic is probably pretty hard (the styli didn't sound too good for very long when these were new as a result of this congenital problem, as I recall). If you're in the US, and want to try an old, as-is stylus just to get yours going, I could give you one if I can find it. PM me if you're interested.
 
This is all I could find on sonus and except for the last two, they are unavailable. When replacements are disproportionately expensive because of the rarity and not necessarily the quality, it simply makes more sense to buy a new cartridge. Unless, of course, this holds a special place in your heart.

http://www.adelcom.net/SonusStylus1.htm

I would think the same would go for the Adcom.

Incidentally for those people (not necessarily you, xpert54) who consider p-mount carts to be junk, these last two Sonus styli were for p-mounts. Do they look like junk to you?
 
Does anyone remember the pecking order of the original Sonus carts. I think Blue was TOTL but can't remember for sure if Red or Green was entry-level.
TIA; Steve
 
I always thought the Adcom was just a pretty decent cart, as I listened to a lot of LP's on the KD 500 TT. So I never thought the P-mounts were junk. The cost for repairing the stylus on the Adcom makes it a Gee I like it but there's better for less. So it will probably get tossed. The Sonus may get a stylus. I'm a bit undecided yet.

The Sonus is a gold colored Cart and I really don't remember much about it as the stylus has been broken for some time. My TT is currently using a Shure M75ED cart and a M95ED Stylus and I'm liking the combo, much better than the Grado F-1+ and the Grado is no slouch.
 
Pio1980 said:
Does anyone remember the pecking order of the original Sonus carts. I think Blue was TOTL but can't remember for sure if Red or Green was entry-level.
TIA; Steve
Click to expand...

From Australian Hi-fi Magazine’s Stereo Buyer’s Guide Turntables 1984, these are the prices of the Sonus models, in Australian dollars.
Dimension 5 $250
Gold Blue $165
Gold Red $145
Silver P $100
Silver E $90
Black A $76
Black C $65

They did also test the Gold Blue several years earlier when testing a JH (Australian) turntable (made in a former WW2 ammunitions factory!), which had a JH Audiolab tonearm on it. The Audiolab was an extremely light tonearm, along the lines of the JH (Mayware/Sonus/Polk) Formula IV tonearm, except with a gimbal mount, rather than a unipivot, and probably made under OEM conditions by the same Japanese company which made the Formula IV. Anyway, the Gold Blue was an excellent match for it, with a resonance of 9Hz, which suggests it must have had an extremely high compliance, along the same lines as Pritchard's ADC cartridges, because the JH Audiolab had an effective mass of only 5.35g - slightly heavier than the Formula IV, but still extremely light. The Gold Blue was a pretty good performer too, although as they were testing a turntable, all they said was that it "measured well and sounded even better"! It did have a pretty flat frequency response out to 15kHz, but after that it rose up to be 5dB above reference at 20kHz, so obviously the cartridge moving system resonance was somewhere near 20kHz - a bit too low, although fairly common for many MM/VR cartridges. It also tracked OK at only 1g, which was the ideal tracking weight.

-Don
 
According to literature that came with an Adcom HC-VDH II cart, the stylus in the Adcom cross-coil cartridges is replaceable. Of course, finding a replacement could be a whole different story.

The Cartridge Database shows the HC/E sold for $140 in 1985, which would make it comparable to the Sonus Red. But if your recollection is that the Sonus was the better sounding cartridge, then that's the one to get fixed up.
 
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