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anyone else running vintage Empire carts?

wualta said:
What part needed the D100L application?
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It was just the pins. As I recall, they were shiny with no sense of tarnish or grime, so I wasn't going to bother trying to clean them. When I started to clean them, I almost thought that there was some substance on them as if the goal of a previous owner was to keep them from getting tarnished. I put the Deoxit on a cloth and just kept rubbing the pins for a few minutes. It certainly did the trick.
 
Hello everyone, I am trying to find out for a friend if for the EDR9 EMPIRE Unit, the original EMPIRE S5000 Diamond can be replaced with another EMPIRE Diamond, and if so, which one? Thank you in advance and I hope you have a great New Year's Eve :)
 
Lacking an S5000, the ideal stylus for an EDR.9 is an S4000D/III, since the EDR.9 and the 4000D/III share the same body underneath all the different mounts and cosmetics. The 4000D/III stylus grip should be shaped to fit the rounded body shell of the EDR.9 to achieve full insertion, but may work well enough without this modification.
 
BTW....
I was able to play the 4000D/III. This is an amazing sounding cartridge especially if you're a turntable listener aficionado.
What I'm trying to say is I use my turntable to record new or close to new LP's and transfer it to reel and cassette tapes. I haven't tried the 4000D/III in this process yet but I'll find out soon. This is a wonderful new year experience!
 
The USian magazine Popular Mechanics was never known as a particularly audiophile-oriented publication, but they did publish Hans Fantel's test of a brace of middle-class phono cartridges right on the edge of oblivion in the Feb 1982 issue. It includes Empire's base elliptical at the time, the 200E (aka 200 E) along with many other favorites still discussed here on AK.

If you want to see the order in which the 200 E pecked, go to the issue here. The article begins on p.80 and the big chart summarizing the results is on p.142.
 
wualta said:
Lacking an S5000, the ideal stylus for an EDR.9 is an S4000D/III, since the EDR.9 and the 4000D/III share the same body underneath all the different mounts and cosmetics. The 4000D/III stylus grip should be shaped to fit the rounded body shell of the EDR.9 to achieve full insertion, but may work well enough without this modification.
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Wait! What? I thought the EDR.9 was its own dog? Maybe it is something to do with the stylus? Damping? I didn’t know that the body/motor are the same. Does the EDR.9 sound the same as a 4000D/iii ? Curious minds need to know.

Earlier I was going to mention that with all of the Empire choices to choose from that I think I have changed my mind now and I’m with Russ and the 4000d. Imo, it’s balanced and the only place that it’s not is at the high freq. with just a touch more of that hf sparkle. Maybe it’s just age catching up with me and I need some hf sparkle? My beloved 2000z & clones still have the absolute flattest fr but I am still leaning towards the added sparkle w the 4000d.

For the past 5-6 months I have been getting rid of all my superfluous tables, carts, phono preamps, etc. and have been demoing all the Empire carts that are going with the turntables I’m clearing out. The 2000z clones are just spectacular so far and have been impressing potential new owners.

Listening to the 2000T w a metallic blue gripped stylus on a JVC QL A7. It’s truly amazing how these Empires all perform so beautifully. I don’t have access to a 4000d anymore but the one low inductance 66 impressed a gentleman yesterday so much that he asked to get it over a Nagaoka MP-200 that he initially wanted. I think this speaks volumes about how good the Empires truly are.

Now I run a VPI Scout table now w a custom built phono preamp, SUT, and mc carts. It’s a few steps up from where I was, but I still am going to keep one backup turntable and one 2000z clone w a few extra styli. Empire performs!
 
You're on the right track. The EDR.9's stylus does have something the 4000D/III's doesn't-- the tiny inertial damper inside the cantilever, designed to reduce the high-frequency resonant peak. It also has slightly less effective tip mass, 0.3mg vs 0.4mg (yes, both are higher than the 2000Z's 0.2mg). But the 4000D is closer to the EDR.9 than any other practical substitute.

I don't have an S5000 to compare to my S4000D/III, but response graphs run by US audio magazines show both to throw a smooth, flat curve, though the 4000D/III shows a broad 2dB peak centered at 15kHz. But the 4000D/III graphs were run at 100k ohm; at 47k, you might still detect some extra sparkle, but it will be less.

It would be interesting to try something like the inertial-damper-equipped S600LAC in the EDR.9. Some minor trimming of plastic would be needed, of course.
 
Can anyone confirm that the stylus for the LTD 750 will work with an OP5 cartridge? I really love the OP5 but it’s showing signs of wear and there are no high quality direct replacements that I’ve been able to find.
 
MitsuMan said:
Can anyone confirm that the stylus for the LTD 750 will work with an OP5 cartridge? I really love the OP5 but it’s showing signs of wear and there are no high quality direct replacements that I’ve been able to find.
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The LTD stylus will fit the OP5 body. I am running an LTD 750 stylus in an OP4 body and it works great.

Be aware that the LTD bodies are very delicate at this point. If you are removing a stylus from an LTD body, be extremely careful to not pull the body apart. The glues have dried out and you can easily separate the coil wires from the body.
 
When I want to remove the pins from the legs of the cartridge, I use a small fine plier, which I place on a leg, just before the pin (between the pin and the body), and without squeezing the leg, I lever against the body by pushing on the pin. In my opinion, it’s a simple yet effective method to prevent the back of the cartridge from separating from the front. In any case, it has always worked on my Empire cartridges. As for the diamond tip, it’s pretty simple on my 2000 E/III, it inserts and comes out of the body easily.
 
Hey all, looping back around on the empire headshell mounts vs. "tired" stylus suspension. I bought a kit off eBay that had 5 degree shims and an older stylus that appeared to be failing.

Sure enough, adding that little shim worked wonders for the stylus angle and it's fine after all. As I understand it, stylus angle changed at some point from 20 degrees to 15 degrees. A "short" empire metal cart mount with a 15 degree stylus can result in cart dragging on the record. Here are some pics with/without the 5 degree shim. The stylus has less than 10 hours on it.

The shims are decent quality. They have the typical texture of a 3d printed item but it's not visible at all after install. The screw holes in the shim are just small enough that they grip onto the screw threads, which actually helped make mounting easier. I did have to swap the screws for a larger size, the shim added enough thickness that I couldn't get the threads to touch with my original screws.
 

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Jeannot61 said:
When I want to remove the pins from the legs of the cartridge, I use a small fine plier, which I place on a leg, just before the pin (between the pin and the body), and without squeezing the leg, I lever against the body by pushing on the pin. In my opinion, it’s a simple yet effective method to prevent the back of the cartridge from separating from the front. In any case, it has always worked on my Empire cartridges. As for the diamond tip, it’s pretty simple on my 2000 E/III, it inserts and comes out of the body easily.
Click to expand...
I use haemostats. Good to hold little mounting parts too.
 
I'm not going to claim the broad experience of some contributors to this thread, but I have a few Empires now and of them, both of the LTDs were broken in the same way. Take that data point as you will.

Here's the post with some photos of one self-deconstructed LTD: anyone else running vintage Empire carts?

Here's the measurement of the ex-LTD stylus on the OP5: anyone else running vintage Empire carts?
 
I remembered incorrectly that you had disassembled a nonworking cartridge so we could see the inner works! Great photos-- I poached them for my archives.
Definitely suspicious that two of them (from different sources?) suffered the same fate.
 
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kels83 said:
Hey all, looping back around on the empire headshell mounts vs. "tired" stylus suspension. I bought a kit off eBay that had 5 degree shims and an older stylus that appeared to be failing.

Sure enough, adding that little shim worked wonders for the stylus angle and it's fine after all. As I understand it, stylus angle changed at some point from 20 degrees to 15 degrees. A "short" empire metal cart mount with a 15 degree stylus can result in cart dragging on the record. Here are some pics with/without the 5 degree shim. The stylus has less than 10 hours on it.

The shims are decent quality. They have the typical texture of a 3d printed item but it's not visible at all after install. The screw holes in the shim are just small enough that they grip onto the screw threads, which actually helped make mounting easier. I did have to swap the screws for a larger size, the shim added enough thickness that I couldn't get the threads to touch with my original screws.
Click to expand...
Here is one of my 2000 E III mounted with a 3mm parallel shim (made by myself) and the small 15° bracket. I had done tests without the shim using the large 20° bracket, and I didn't really notice any significant difference. Both of my 2000 E III come originally with a 15° bracket, I had found a 20° bracket for testing, but I went back to the 15°. For information, I had found a 2000 E for my brother-in-law, and it was originally mounted with a 20° bracket.
I forgot to mention: the purpose of the shim was to have the arm perfectly parallel to the disc. With the large bracket, the three millimeters are automatically compensated without the shim.
 
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I had a question: does anyone still have the original Empire 2000 E/III cardboard box? If so, I would be interested in PDFs of scans of all six sides, or two scans of the box opened and laid flat, or even fully opened flat. Thanks in advance. ;)
 
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