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Empire Thread of Inductance & Resistance for 2000 style bodies

hucklecat said:
Data point to add to the discussion:

2000 -- 508R/507R, 248mH/243mH

I purchased without a stylus. Suggestions for a suitable match?

View attachment 3028724
Click to expand...
You basically have a 4000d and can disregard the model number. Those low numbers are found on the 4000d and 2000x models and perhaps some early model 66 had something close to that just under 300 mH.

Any 4000d stylus will work well with it or any 66 stylus will work fine and be properly voiced. A 2000e stylus was designed for double the inductance I’ll look on VOM and see what Gary has available.

Your cart will have plenty of sparkle w the highs no matter what empire stylus you choose. I find the lower inductance blob carts have that and a little bit more fine detail and air to them but it will definitely depend on your setup.

Nice find btw.
 
hucklecat said:
Data point to add to the discussion:

2000 -- 508R/507R, 248mH/243mH

I purchased without a stylus. Suggestions for a suitable match?

View attachment 3028724
Click to expand...

​
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4238-D7DuotoneDiamond 0.7 mil tip for 16,33,45 rpm records
This will
work. Gary at VOM has them. Unfortunately there are not a lot of options available from the 66 series right now.

You can also look on “” Bay for empire 66 e/x stylus. Any of them will work fine with your cart. I would recommend not buying anything expensive.

There are a wide variety of 2000e/i ii iii styli available from VOM right now but they might be a bit brighter than a 66 stylus.

If you want to get fancy you could look for a used 66 e/x or 4000d worn stylus and get it retipped with your choice of diamond. I’d recommend starting with a cheap conical to see how it sounds first though before spending $$ on it.

Let us know what you are thinking about or looking at if you’re not sure. Lots of people here can help you with your questions. Good luck!
 
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I picked up a Garrads Lab 75 yesterday at an estate sale because it came with a pristine Empire 999 TE with its original .2x.7 nude white grip stylus. I got it mounted to one of those generic Technics headshells from Aliexpress and mounted it on my 12000 MKII tracking at 1.25 grams and God, it sounds superb.

tanqWKP.jpg


1eRcpr3.jpg
 
OP4 -- 1487R/1488R, 582mH/580mH

I guess these last two are not really 2000-style blobs, but I figure the data points are useful.

IMG_5438.jpeg
 
Not Blobs, true, but very close electrically (especially inductance, where it counts most) to the 2000E/I,II,III family. Somewhere in this thread are photos of people managing to get 2000E styli into the Dynamic Interface/Chonk bodies like the one in your photo! One of those Don't Try This At Home Or If You Do Don't Blame Us kinda things.
 
Last of this batch of Empire acquisitions arrived. It's a good news, bad news situation.

Good news: It's a LTD 750 GT with what looks like what might be an actual Golden Touch stylus. The stylus body is black. The cantilever is dirty, but under magnification you can clearly see the gold coating. I do need to clean it up a bit better to evaluate the wear situation on the diamond.

Bad news: The right channel is dead.

Possible good news: The good channel measures 1530R/651mH, which is pretty close to my OP4 body (1487/580), and the right stylus mounting type, making me think I might now have a (potentially nice) stylus for the OP4.

Bummer about the body, but I think one dud out of the 9 carts I bought just this year is not a terrible hit rate.

Switching gears for a while to actually listening to these carts for a while. Unfortunately switching carts on my current setup is a non-trivial endeavor, so it may be slow going. Also have a lot of vintage AT carts incoming -- a recently purchased stylus lot included some nice NOS AT diamonds to check out. It gives me a thrill to find that old forgotten things not only have a second life in them, but can be really very very good when given a chance.

Edited to note: wualta has some notes on the GT series carts here: https://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/empire-1000gt-cartridge.664115/#post-8893464

IMG_5572.jpeg
 
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Am I getting my hopes up too much thinking this could be an S1080LT stylus, which would have been stock on a LTD 780 GT?

s-l1600.jpg
 
hucklecat said:
Last of this batch of Empire acquisitions arrived. It's a good news, bad news situation.



Bad news: The right channel is dead.

Possible good news: The good channel measures 1530R/651mH, which is pretty close to my OP4 body (1487/580), and the right stylus mounting type, making me think I might now have a (potentially nice) stylus for the OP4.

Bummer about the body, but I think one dud out of the 9 carts I bought just this year is not a terrible hit rate.
Click to expand...
Try reflowing the solder for the two terminals for the open channel using a soldering iron. I have fixed a few carts doing this.
 
cmarti said:
Try reflowing the solder for the two terminals for the open channel using a soldering iron. I have fixed a few carts doing this.
Click to expand...

Yep thanks. Tried that already, no change. I might try again with a little more gusto. Not much to lose.
 
I made a CSV file of all the measurements shared in this thread so far. Enjoy.

Edited to note: at the beginning I duplicated values to both channels if only one value was provided. That got old, though, so most of the time if only one value was given, the second channel is blank. If you're going to do some data analysis that depends on channel differences, you may want to double-check my work.
 

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