villerat01
Active Member
I have a Pioneer Pl-71 TT, Pioneer sx1250 receiver and some Klipsch Cornwall 2's. I would like to spend under 300, any suggestions?
Cartridge suggestion under $300
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libertycaps
Analogue "AAA" vinyl.
Grado Gold1. $220 well spent. (Well $95 well spent, that is. I traded in some audio schwag to get it....)
But i hope your vinyl is double-plus clean cuz the Grado Gold1 does not suffer dirty vinyl lightly.
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villerat01
Active Member
Any opinions on the Denon DL-103r?
thedelihaus
Nocturnal transmissions
Does your Pioneer have a MC phono imput? It needs it.
Otherwise, nice cart. What I don't like about it is it's heavy-ish tracking weight.
Otherwise, nice cart. What I don't like about it is it's heavy-ish tracking weight.
shelly_d
Not An Audiophool
That turntable should be able to handle anything from Shure, Grado, and a few Denon are withen your budget. The specs on Vinyl Engine suggest a cartridge weight of 4 to 32 grams the these makes seem to come in under 6 grams. I love my Shure V15 III and before that I used a Shure M91ED. It was and still is a different turntable but these should work well in your tonearm.
What you want is to pick the sound you want. I find the Shure is a very clean, well balanced sound, reproducing the music accurately and clearly. Good dynamics and fine separation. It too will make dirt on the record audible however. In my tonearm it tracks very well as long as the base is not giggled by footfalls. In fairness to you you should know that in my Thorens 150 MKII it had a history of being very sensitive to foot fall skip. Once I put it on a wall shelf mounted to the studs, that went away. Using it in a Technics SL1300 seems fine but that has been on the same shelf since I got it.
Good Luck
Shelly_D
What you want is to pick the sound you want. I find the Shure is a very clean, well balanced sound, reproducing the music accurately and clearly. Good dynamics and fine separation. It too will make dirt on the record audible however. In my tonearm it tracks very well as long as the base is not giggled by footfalls. In fairness to you you should know that in my Thorens 150 MKII it had a history of being very sensitive to foot fall skip. Once I put it on a wall shelf mounted to the studs, that went away. Using it in a Technics SL1300 seems fine but that has been on the same shelf since I got it.
Good Luck
Shelly_D
Short list of brands (each with its own house sound)
Ortofon
Shure
Nagaoka
Grado
Audio Technica
Also in that price bracket you can pick up some vintage classics for which there are still top end styli available.... brands include the above plus:
ADC (XLM SuperXLM ZLM)
Empire
Sony
Some more specific ideas:
Shure V15 (III/IV/V) can be had without a stylus for under $100 usually - a Jico SAS stylus costs around $130 - so for $230 (+/- can be substantial given the auctions but still) - you have what was considered true TOTL not so many years ago.
Other TOTL competitors
Audio Technica Signet TK4/5/6/7/8/9 (they take standard AT styli like the 440MLa and 150MLx - should be viable around the same price as the V15)
Audio Technica AT15/20 or AT15x/16x/17x/18x
ADC XML - you can still get Astrion/ZLM and SuperXLM styli for this legendary cartridge
Ortofon OM30/40 - all OM bodies can be upgraded by replacing the styli, so an OM10 can become a very high end OM40 - the 30/40 are equivalent to the current 2M Bronze/Black - you should be able to do a 30 for around your price bracket. (still available new from KAB)
TOTL Stanton/Pickering (don't know much about these, but their fans rave about them)
NOTE: before committing - check the effective mass of your arm, and what compliance would suit it best in a cartridge.
Cartridges with a brush (Shure, Stanton, Pickering) have a built in damping mechanism that widens their compatibility by about 50% - so a Shure V15V with SAS and damper brush will match a very wide range of arms...
good luck
David
Ortofon
Shure
Nagaoka
Grado
Audio Technica
Also in that price bracket you can pick up some vintage classics for which there are still top end styli available.... brands include the above plus:
ADC (XLM SuperXLM ZLM)
Empire
Sony
Some more specific ideas:
Shure V15 (III/IV/V) can be had without a stylus for under $100 usually - a Jico SAS stylus costs around $130 - so for $230 (+/- can be substantial given the auctions but still) - you have what was considered true TOTL not so many years ago.
Other TOTL competitors
Audio Technica Signet TK4/5/6/7/8/9 (they take standard AT styli like the 440MLa and 150MLx - should be viable around the same price as the V15)
Audio Technica AT15/20 or AT15x/16x/17x/18x
ADC XML - you can still get Astrion/ZLM and SuperXLM styli for this legendary cartridge
Ortofon OM30/40 - all OM bodies can be upgraded by replacing the styli, so an OM10 can become a very high end OM40 - the 30/40 are equivalent to the current 2M Bronze/Black - you should be able to do a 30 for around your price bracket. (still available new from KAB)
TOTL Stanton/Pickering (don't know much about these, but their fans rave about them)
NOTE: before committing - check the effective mass of your arm, and what compliance would suit it best in a cartridge.
Cartridges with a brush (Shure, Stanton, Pickering) have a built in damping mechanism that widens their compatibility by about 50% - so a Shure V15V with SAS and damper brush will match a very wide range of arms...
good luck
David
That is usually an indication of a cartridge / arm mismatch resulting in a resonant frequency below 8Hz
Worst case is around 5Hz which would exagerate sensitivity to footfalls to the max.
Use a resonance calculator http://www.resfreq.com/resonancecalculator.html to work out the resonant frequency for your arm / cartridge combination.
Frequencies between 10-15Hz will play "easily" (no skips, footfall sensitivity etc..)
Frequencies below 8Hz start to be troublesome
Frequencies above 12Hz may start to impact on the lower bass (but you may like it...)
Perfect target frequency is 10Hz
And like I said in my other posting - a damping brush helps to control a less than perfect combo... it might allow going down to 7Hz without issues, but you might still have trouble below 7Hz (as an example)
bye for now
David
Slowhead
Active Member
Shure 97XE, about $60 from Amazon. Remove the stylus and put in a drawer for back-up. Buy a JICO SAS stylus $130 from them or LP Gear.
The downside: for $60, a few people have bought duds. The SAS stylus is not the most forgiving styli on so-so quality records.
The upside: for that kind of $, there isn't anything that can hang with it. Detail, and then some. Many highend analog hobbyists buy the combination out of curiousity and it becomes their daily driver.
Plenty other good choices out there for that kind of $. It will become more about your tastes.
The downside: for $60, a few people have bought duds. The SAS stylus is not the most forgiving styli on so-so quality records.
The upside: for that kind of $, there isn't anything that can hang with it. Detail, and then some. Many highend analog hobbyists buy the combination out of curiousity and it becomes their daily driver.
Plenty other good choices out there for that kind of $. It will become more about your tastes.
Mr. Lin
Lunatic Member
Apparently it's advisable to use a heavy tonearm with that one. Not to mention the amount of gain you need.
What's your taste in music? Any specific kind of sound you like that you could describe to us?
Well I purchased an AT 440mLa a couple of years ago and a buddy of mine had a Denon DL 103 in service. On a lark we decided we'd swap and found basically that we wanted to keep our respective loaner. We made the trade permanent.
lini
just me...
sg: Yup, but I'd deem the arm of the PL-71 too heavy for the pretty highly compliant DL301II to be really optimal. An AT-F3III or an AT-F7 could be an idea, though - or an Ortofon Salsa, if the body colour wasn't so horrible (although, when I come to think of it, together with the sliver and the wood veneer of the pioneer that translucent orange might even look quite neat...).
Greetings from Munich!
Manfred / lini
Greetings from Munich!
Manfred / lini
marcmorin
RIP 1953-2020
PM me for options on a G1+/8MZ "frankengrado"
a similar combination of this can be heard on this website.
As well as some of the other carts mentioned in this thread.
http://daveyw.edsstuff.org/index.htm
villerat01
Active Member
I pretty much listen rock/classic rock /hard rock. Thanks guys.
Balifly
Listening
The AT 95HE sure sounds great for the price especially for rock.
http://www.lpgear.com/Merchant2/mer...&Product_Code=LPGAT95HE&Category_Code=LPGCART
shelly_d
Not An Audiophool
Thank you for that advice. Unfortunately, the effective mass of the TP13a tonearm in the Thorens seems to be unobtainium at the moment. A search of the web turned up a number of people wanting to know, but I was unable to find any site or forum that had an answer, much less an authoritative one.
Shelly_D
TJLitt
Super Member
note the similarities in various core components with you(Sansui electronics, older Pio table with heavy-ish arm, Klipsch speakers). Then, go and check out my initial observations about a Stanton 680 cartridge elsewhere on this subforum. You can buy a new 681 for under $160. I used to have a Grado Red, the Stanton is far better, I still own a Denon DL-110, the Stanton is better than that one, as well.
Take a look at the tonearm mass thread on Vinyl Engine
http://www.vinylengine.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=24136
Somewhere in that thread is LuckyDog's tonearm mass calculator
to use it you will need to weigh and measure parts of the arm then plug the values into the calculator.
a set of digital kitchen scales works for the counterweight, a digital stylus force gauge is ideal for the rest. (and really really usefull for setting up your arm)
bye for now
David
Mamas_Pride
New Member
Newbie here, not sure where to post this guess this is a good as place any. I recently inherited a Technics sl-bd22. I intend to hook this up to the computer to mobilize some of my lps, however it needs a new stylus. It is Audio Technia Sereis 1 haven't been able to find much on this cartridge so I have been thinking of a different cartridge. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
