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Better cartridge for KD-5070, Stanton 881S or the 680EE

H

hwystar

Super Member
So I got a Kenwood KD-5070 a few weeks ago and it came with the 881s Stanton. I have no problems with it. I also have a Realistic Lab 440 with a 680EE Stanton. The Kenwood has the S shaped tone arm and the Lab 440 has a straight tone arm which may actually be a lower mass but I don't know.

Which cartridge would be better to use with the Kenwood? The Lab 440? Does it matter all that much? I've read that the 881s may require a low mass tone arm.
 
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The 881 seems pretty forgiving. I've run one on an aluminum Sony arm with good results.
 
The 881 is high compliance.

I find that dynamic compliances of about 15 x10-6cm/Dyne and below work best on my KD5070. 20 x10-6cm/Dyne work ok, but 25 x10-6cm/Dyne is getting on the fringe. The Stanton 680 models appear to have dynamic compliance in the ideal range, but I have not experience with Stantons.

FYI - using an online spreadsheet and a digital scale, I figured the tonearm effective mass is about 17g on the stock KD5070.
 
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The 881 and 981 I like best only on really upper end low mass tonearms like the SME III, Infinity Black Widow, the Mayware Formula IV and similar. The 681 excels on them with the top styli but many options for styli exist which do fine on most tonearms.
 
I think it would be extremely difficult to swap a new arm onto the KD5070. It certainly would be difficult to maintain the automatic functions with a replacement arm.

Fyi - The black plastic base on the KD5070 is prone to resonance from music feedback, in spite of the heavy plinth. I removed mine, packed the bottom and sides of the plastic base with modeling clay. Resonance solved. Tapping it does not transmit to the stylus anymore.
 
cgutz said:
I think it would be extremely difficult to swap a new arm onto the KD5070. It certainly would be difficult to maintain the automatic functions with a replacement arm.

Fyi - The black plastic base on the KD5070 is prone to resonance from music feedback, in spite of the heavy plinth. I removed mine, packed the bottom and sides of the plastic base with modeling clay. Resonance solved. Tapping it does not transmit to the stylus anymore.
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Interesting, the heavy composite plinth was supposed to reduce or eliminate resonance I thought. Good tip.
 
The 881S is a fantastic cart, but I'd think the mass of the Kenwood would be a bit too much for it. The 681 is more forgiving mass wise IMO.

The point may be moot though, since proper replacement styli for the 881S are no longer being made, so you'd never get true "original performance" with an aftermarket stylus, unless you retipped an original. You have many more options stylus wise with the 681 series.
 
hwystar said:
I have a 680 EE. Is that much different from the 681?
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No just use a different stylus. That's the short version. Your stylus is a D680EE and depending upon which version of the 681 you have it could be anything from the D6800EE or EEE or EEEs Or the last version which is a EEE mark III
 
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The 881S is the Stanton equivalent to the Pickering XSV/D-3000 combo, and I can tell you that the XSV with D-3000 stylus is about as good as a MM cart gets, really close to MC cart in terms of resolution, stereo separation, imaging, noise rejection etc.

I would go for the 881S, no questions, as my familiarity with the other cart is minimal . . .

Cheers
 
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