anyone else running vintage Empire carts?
- Thread starter gadget73
- Start date
Partial inventory, all genuine (that is, US-made):
E/II: black rubber, adhesive "crumb" visible
Also, two genuine S66QE/Xes, one S440D, one S4000D/III: all black rubber, adhesive "crumb" visible
Zero collapsed suspensions.
I believe my genuine E/I and E/III are in the Other Facility, where they could live in a Denon electrodynamically-damped tonearm. I'll check on them next time I'm over there, but probably not soon.
E/II: black rubber, adhesive "crumb" visible
Also, two genuine S66QE/Xes, one S440D, one S4000D/III: all black rubber, adhesive "crumb" visible
Zero collapsed suspensions.
I believe my genuine E/I and E/III are in the Other Facility, where they could live in a Denon electrodynamically-damped tonearm. I'll check on them next time I'm over there, but probably not soon.
Last edited:
KSM74
Active Member
Looked into the box with broken needles. All USA original Empire needles (S4000DI, S1000ZE/X, S2000T and S300ME) have a black rubber block.
So I did a crazy thing with my old cantilever that slipped back into the shank. I swapped the suspension and glued it back together. And it seems to work well. I used liquid epoxy because it has a lower viscosity; less friction during assembly and can be applied so thin it is practically weightless.
1. Cleaned the suspension grommet and the cantilever with a paint brush and dawn water.
2. Let dry thoroughly
3. Measured mounting depths against a known, NOS stylus for A) suspension grommet and B) cantilever. I had to eyeball the grommet depth but measured the cantilever with calipers.
4. Mixed some liquid epoxy, used a paint brush to paint the outside perimeter of the grommet, and pressed it in with the little "crumb" on top. Let dry.
**Note that the hole in the suspension for the cantilever is not straight, it's cut at a precise angle so the cantilever protrudes down to the record. Therefore, getting the grommet in the correct orientation is critical.
5. Mixed some more epoxy and painted a small ring around the cantilever, right behind the little collar where the taper ends (correct per measurements in step 3) as measured with calipers.
6. Rotated the cantilever to align the tip as best possible with plastic tweezers
7. For final centering with the turntable OFF and the tracking force set to 0.25g, I mounted the needle and placed it in the center of an old record. I slowly and manually rotated the record 2 rotations.
**Thoughts on this step are that the record grooves will help align the diamond and cantilever tip in the suspension collar much more precisely than I could by hand. I needed enough force to align the needle, but not so much that the cantilever would pull out. Hence the 0.25g tracking and slow rotation. It seemed to work.
8. Removed the stylus and let it completely dry for the time specified on the epoxy.
Shockingly (to me), the stylus now plays pretty well and the formerly mushy suspension is firm again, more firm than the NOS original. The lows are a bit muted and I had to add about 0.5g tracking. But the mids and highs sound clear, volume is on par.
In hindsight, I think I screwed it up. I think the original stylus only had the single crumb of adhesive instead being glued all the way around. There was no adhesive on the cantilever when I removed it, the crumb remained on the suspension. So I probably messed this thing up by gluing all the way around the cantilever instead of just a dot on the top. I think this restricts movement, which mutes the larger vibrations that show up as low end.
But it was fun experiment and I learned. It doesn't sound bad, in fact it sounds really good. Just not what I remember. My family couldn't hear a difference. I don't have equipment to measure.
I wouldn't recommend anyone do this. I'm still concerned about damaging my records with a misaligned diamond. But technically I now I have a stylus with the black suspension grommet that plays and the sound is surprisingly well. I'll continue to play it on the same old record and look for damage over time.
Notes:
-I had nothing to loose with this experiment. Just playing with old, broken parts.
-If successful, the use of epoxy as an adhesive would definitely stand up to solvents including alcohol.
-The entire outside perimeter of the suspension grommet had adhesive all the way around. It came off easily with tweezers.
-Upon removing the suspension grommet, it was in surprisingly good condition. Very resilient and it retained it's form. I suspect failing adhesive was the issue with this formerly saggy stylus all along, not the rubber.
-While out I conditioned the suspension grommet in Dupont Seal Saver with a bit of wintergreen oil to rejuvenate the rubber. Seems to work well, but of course I washed it with dawn water and a paint brush so the epoxy could bond.
-The "collar' of the section of the cantilever that contains the magnet does a pretty good job of seating the cantilever in the suspension at the correct depth.
BEHOLD the FrankenStylus!
1. Cleaned the suspension grommet and the cantilever with a paint brush and dawn water.
2. Let dry thoroughly
3. Measured mounting depths against a known, NOS stylus for A) suspension grommet and B) cantilever. I had to eyeball the grommet depth but measured the cantilever with calipers.
4. Mixed some liquid epoxy, used a paint brush to paint the outside perimeter of the grommet, and pressed it in with the little "crumb" on top. Let dry.
**Note that the hole in the suspension for the cantilever is not straight, it's cut at a precise angle so the cantilever protrudes down to the record. Therefore, getting the grommet in the correct orientation is critical.
5. Mixed some more epoxy and painted a small ring around the cantilever, right behind the little collar where the taper ends (correct per measurements in step 3) as measured with calipers.
6. Rotated the cantilever to align the tip as best possible with plastic tweezers
7. For final centering with the turntable OFF and the tracking force set to 0.25g, I mounted the needle and placed it in the center of an old record. I slowly and manually rotated the record 2 rotations.
**Thoughts on this step are that the record grooves will help align the diamond and cantilever tip in the suspension collar much more precisely than I could by hand. I needed enough force to align the needle, but not so much that the cantilever would pull out. Hence the 0.25g tracking and slow rotation. It seemed to work.
8. Removed the stylus and let it completely dry for the time specified on the epoxy.
Shockingly (to me), the stylus now plays pretty well and the formerly mushy suspension is firm again, more firm than the NOS original. The lows are a bit muted and I had to add about 0.5g tracking. But the mids and highs sound clear, volume is on par.
In hindsight, I think I screwed it up. I think the original stylus only had the single crumb of adhesive instead being glued all the way around. There was no adhesive on the cantilever when I removed it, the crumb remained on the suspension. So I probably messed this thing up by gluing all the way around the cantilever instead of just a dot on the top. I think this restricts movement, which mutes the larger vibrations that show up as low end.
But it was fun experiment and I learned. It doesn't sound bad, in fact it sounds really good. Just not what I remember. My family couldn't hear a difference. I don't have equipment to measure.
I wouldn't recommend anyone do this. I'm still concerned about damaging my records with a misaligned diamond. But technically I now I have a stylus with the black suspension grommet that plays and the sound is surprisingly well. I'll continue to play it on the same old record and look for damage over time.
Notes:
-I had nothing to loose with this experiment. Just playing with old, broken parts.
-If successful, the use of epoxy as an adhesive would definitely stand up to solvents including alcohol.
-The entire outside perimeter of the suspension grommet had adhesive all the way around. It came off easily with tweezers.
-Upon removing the suspension grommet, it was in surprisingly good condition. Very resilient and it retained it's form. I suspect failing adhesive was the issue with this formerly saggy stylus all along, not the rubber.
-While out I conditioned the suspension grommet in Dupont Seal Saver with a bit of wintergreen oil to rejuvenate the rubber. Seems to work well, but of course I washed it with dawn water and a paint brush so the epoxy could bond.
-The "collar' of the section of the cantilever that contains the magnet does a pretty good job of seating the cantilever in the suspension at the correct depth.
BEHOLD the FrankenStylus!
Attachments
KSM74
Active Member
There shouldn't be a magnet on the original Empire cantilever, it's an MI cartridge.
Gotcha, still learning about carts and trying to contribute. What would the correct term be for the encased back end of the cantilever?
Whatever it's called, the forward ridge (closest to the diamond) on that casing seems to line up exactly with the correct depth for mounting the cantilever. Wish I had taken pics, I was trying to get everything aligned before the epoxy hardened.
russdall
An Uprooted Oklahoman
Excellent job I say........At least you stepped out of your comfort zone and tried something, "almost crazy" in scope.
From this day.......I dub you ( Sir Crazy Diamond Guy ) "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"
The material is soft iron or permalloy-- lots of different terms for variations on essentially the same thing: iron alloy that "conducts" (ie, is permeable by) a magnetic field but doesn't retain any magnetism once the field is removed. Magnetically soft. The casing is variously termed collar or armature or as Empire put it in the early days of this design, "magnetic cone". That name seems to've confused people who, I'm guessing, have assumed "magnetic" means "magnet". Even Julian Hirsch called it a magnet in his July 1965 test of the 888P, but that may have been a goof by Empire's marketing people in their handouts. But C.G. McProud made the same mistake in his November 1970 test of the 1000ZE in Audio. That's the US Audio, not the German Audio, which is teaching me new words like ausgezeichnet.
As it turns out, a slight emergency at the Other Facility will require my presence there this Friday. [Update: Middle Son handled it solo, a good thing, but it mooted the trip]. Next time I'm able to inspect the other Empire styli, I'll check on the suspension color. I really don't recall any US-made Empire suspension grommets being green. ADC grommets, yes. But Empire? I'd like to think I'd notice that. But we'll see.
Last edited:
ejman
Super Member
I just received a 232-SDE (pink) for my Empire 888PE cartridge mounted on a Dual 1019. At first I thought I got a bad stylus because tracking at 1,5 grams one side of the stylus housing would occasionally bump against the record making a scraping sound. I lowered the VTF to about 1.2 grams and it seems to be tracking ok so far. -It actually sounds pretty good- I've never tracked this low (my minimum with just about all cartridges I've used before (Shure, AT, Grado, Rega) has been 1.5 grams) is this normal for the 232-SDE?
If 1.2g sounds good and you don't hear mistracking on those female-vocal S sounds, stay with 1.2g.
When one side of the grip was hitting the record, was this toward the record's outer edge? Regardless, these styli are low riders, so the bottom surface of the grip should be as close to parallel with the record surface as you can manage. For what it's worth, 1.5g was what Julian Hirsch used for the 888VE tested in July 1969's Stereo Review, but that doesn't mean you have to use 1.5g. Especially with stuff this old, you often have to let the stylus tell you when it's happy.
When one side of the grip was hitting the record, was this toward the record's outer edge? Regardless, these styli are low riders, so the bottom surface of the grip should be as close to parallel with the record surface as you can manage. For what it's worth, 1.5g was what Julian Hirsch used for the 888VE tested in July 1969's Stereo Review, but that doesn't mean you have to use 1.5g. Especially with stuff this old, you often have to let the stylus tell you when it's happy.
ejman
Super Member
Yes, the very light scraping sound was closer to the outer edge. The bottom of the cartridge and grip is probably mo more that about one millimeter from the record even at 1.2 grams but, it does sound OK. Very very light sibilants but they are probably on the LP as recorded.
Cylontymany
Super Member
Would like to know what the best available stylus is for the 999VE
If you could find one, the S1000ZE/X (236-ZDE) would be ideal, and though I don't know of any available right now, it's worth having a look around. Among off-the-shelf styli, you can still get the white 232-SDE (for the 888 TE), but if you have records with any appreciable warps, I'd consider the blue 235-SDE (for the 999 SE/X). Both are currently stocked by tVOM, thevoiceofmusic.
Cylontymany
Super Member
Thanks