Estate sale finds- Questions about Acutex, adcom and JVC carts

[ecdarby]

Questions about Acutex, adcom and JVC carts

Alright, went to an estate sale today and I hit the NOS cartridge lottery. I picked up about 25 or so of them with at least as many headshells. Also got some really cool AT and Micro Acoustics display/ sales samples.

Anyone have any opinions of acutex carts, I picked up about 15 of these (m106, m107e, m110e, m310e, m307iie, 415-str). Generally speaking, where do these stand next to Shure/ AT/ Stanton/ etc with comparable specs?

What about an Adcom gfc-1e? Cant find any real info on these. I believe it's a .3x.7 elliptical MM cart. Anyone listen to this or familiar with the brand?

What about a jvc-1029e? I believe this is a re-badged AT if I'm not mistaken.


Some other notables that were included:
- Micro Acoustics 282-e
- dynavector 20c MC cartridge
- Grado Gold
- Sony xl-mc1
- Grado HP-2 headphones

I grabbed most of the turn table stuff but Im sure there are going to be several other people posting in the speaker and amp categories about this same sale.

 

[ecdarby]

Bump...

... With pics.

 

[ecdarby]

Dig these headphones, NOS and hand assembled by Joseph Grado himself. Unfortunately, the ear pads disintegrated over the decades in storage.

 

[markshan]

Original HP1000s! Are you kidding me? Gonna have to call that a scroe!!!

 

[ecdarby]

Yeah, I'm still kind of in shock over all of it. If I told you what I paid for all of this, you would cry. But very stupidly, I didn't know what exactly these headphones were when I was checking out, and actually had two pairs of them in my hands. When I got to the register, I was $100 over what I had in my pocket and they weren't taking credit cards. Stupid me, I was like, "well... one should be enough. Go ahead and put this back."

 

[markshan]

Hopefully you made someone else every happy too. That's good karma.

 

[Grbluen]

I really want to be happy for you.

 

[wweigle]

The collection should keep you busy for some time. Looks like a fun score!!

 

[ecdarby]

Yeah, someone else got a deal of a lifetime. Actually, I'm sure a whole bunch of people did. This sale was crazy, like Disneyland on christmas morning for audio junkies. The person who's estate it was had to have been a dealer or something back in the day.

Sorry, got off topic with this one. Really interested in these acutex and adcom carts. People seem to regard the acutex carts pretty highly. Do they generally please the ears? It will take me years to listen to all of them after breaking them in.

Also, this is my first Grado. Any ideas which model it is? I don't see any identifying marks on it, but assume it's a gold because of the gold body color (could be totally wrong about that). Is it one of the one's that hum, or do they just all do that?

 

[marcmorin]

Also, this is my first Grado. Any ideas which model it is? I don't see any identifying marks on it, but assume it's a gold because of the gold body color (could be totally wrong about that). Is it one of the one's that hum, or do they just all do that?

It's one of them hummin hunks a junk. Couldn't track a bull elephant in the snow. Hekk it ain't even a Gold. PM me if yer looking to unload that.

 

[jkilla]

Hey ECdarby, there are a lot of acutex fans on audiokarma, myself included.

The MA282 is a very nice cart, not your standard MM/MC type, but a proprietary system, often referred to as an Electret cartridge. Supposedly amazing sounding.

The dynavector is also a gem of a find too, if it is in good shape.


Now about the acutex carts. The 3xx series and higher are a "tripole" design, which supposedly delivers a much a very three dimensional soundstage, which is very very nice to listen to. I have a 415 STR as well, but I find it not a very good match for my system and turntables. Perhaps you'll have better luck with it. It uses a special shibata-like tipped stylus, for better than elliptical sound retrieval

 

[ecdarby]

Sounds like a real stinker. I'll just go ahead and smash it then, so that nobody's ears would be cursed to ever have to listen to it, least of all yours. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[ecdarby]

It's one of them hummin hunks a junk. Couldn't track a bull elephant in the snow. Hekk it ain't even a Gold. PM me if yer looking to unload that.

Sounds like a real stinker. I'll just go ahead and smash it then, so that nobody's ears would be cursed to ever have to listen to it, least of all yours. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[ecdarby]

Hey ECdarby, there are a lot of acutex fans on audiokarma, myself included.

The MA282 is a very nice cart, not your standard MM/MC type, but a proprietary system, often referred to as an Electret cartridge. Supposedly amazing sounding.

Very nice, thanks for the info. does that mean it's variable capacitance like a condenser mic?

The dynavector is also a gem of a find too, if it is in good shape.

I'll have to look this one over. It's got scotch tape all over it for some reason, need to look at the tip through a jeweler's loop.

Now about the acutex carts. The 3xx series and higher are a "tripole" design, which supposedly delivers a much a very three dimensional soundstage, which is very very nice to listen to. I have a 415 STR as well, but I find it not a very good match for my system and turntables. Perhaps you'll have better luck with it. It uses a special shibata-like tipped stylus, for better than elliptical sound retrieval

What about about it do you feel doesn't match up to your setup/ what kind of a setup do you feel it needs? Just a compliance/ arm mismatch?

 

[jkilla]

Amazing score btw. Mouth watering!

Looking to sell anything ??

 

[jkilla]

Very nice, thanks for the info. does that mean it's variable capacitance like a condenser mic?

What about about it do you feel doesn't match up to your setup/ what kind of a setup do you feel it needs? Just a compliance/ arm mismatch?

Like I mentioned, it's only referred to as an Electret cart often but technically it is not. AK user Pio explains it best in this post here:

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showpost.php?p=5031094&postcount=13


As for the 415 STR,
I've tried it on 3 arms, 2 mid-mass S arms and my straight-armed sony tonearm which is low mass. It will not track without sibilance despite all the VTF+VTA settings I try it with. I think I got it to track with much less sibilance after cranking the VTF up to 2.65g which is way way over the recommended VTF range. Other users have had better luck than I with this, so I do hope they can chime in on this. (If you can get it to track for you, it is a great pleasure to listen to)

 

[ecdarby]

Quote:
Originally Posted by jkilla View Post
The dynavector is also a gem of a find too, if it is in good shape.

I'll have to look this one over. It's got scotch tape all over it for some reason, need to look at the tip through a jeweler's loop.

Damn, the cantilever is snapped on it, the scotch tape was holding on the stylus guard. Good candidate for a retip?

Amazing score btw. Mouth watering!

Looking to sell anything ??

I'll have to eventually, but not sure yet which ones. Even if I switched to vinyl exclusively, this score would set me up on Styli through retirement (and maybe beyond). I'm half tempted to put it all back in the box and into the closet for another 20 or 30 years and see if it will fund my retirement.

As for the 415 STR,
I've tried it on 3 arms, 2 mid-mass S arms and my straight-armed sony tonearm which is low mass. It will not track without sibilance despite all the VTF+VTA settings I try it with. I think I got it to track with much less sibilance after cranking the VTF up to 2.65g which is way way over the recommended VTF range. Other users have had better luck than I with this, so I do hope they can chime in on this. (If you can get it to track for you, it is a great pleasure to listen to)

Interesting. Wonder if that's a common issue with this cart. I'll have to do some reading and play around with it. I used to have a Stanton 681 I tried with a Jico stylus that was the same way. Ended up sending it to my brother who says he absolutely loves it. Go figure.

 

[marcmorin]

Sounds like a real stinker. I'll just go ahead and smash it then, so that nobody's ears would be cursed to ever have to listen to it, least of all yours. Thanks for the heads up.

Now, on a serious note about that Grado cart. Can you tell me what the box said was the name of the cart. The coil covers suggest this is something different than the standard Grado Labs product. Some carts were offered up with non-normal names and number for different markets, that don't cross over on the Grado website. What is the date of manufacture? That can be found above the pins at the rear of the cart. Should be a letter and two digits. Also, can you throw an ohm meter across the coils?

 

[markshan]

Dig these headphones, NOS and hand assembled by Joseph Grado himself. Unfortunately, the ear pads disintegrated over the decades in storage.

BTW, if those are the same size as my SR60s, the Sennheiser HD 414 pads are cheap, readily available and more comfortable than the Grado ones.

 

[ecdarby]

Now, on a serious note about that Grado cart. Can you tell me what the box said was the name of the cart. The coil covers suggest this is something different than the standard Grado Labs product. Some carts were offered up with non-normal names and number for different markets, that don't cross over on the Grado website. What is the date of manufacture? That can be found above the pins at the rear of the cart. Should be a letter and two digits. Also, can you throw an ohm meter across the coils?

The manufacturer date code is L90 (December of 1990 I'm guessing?). But the cart came in just the plain black box. There were actually 2 Grados in the lot, but the other was a DJ cart (DJ-100). Both of them came in identical black boxes, but the dj cart had the outer white cardboard box as well, with the id printed on it.

Id take the continuity across the coils and give you the dc resistance, but I'm afraid my multimeter would melt those tiny coils. Any other way to id it from cosmetics? I'll get some better pics and post them later.

BTW, if those are the same size as my SR60s, the Sennheiser HD 414 pads are cheap, readily available and more comfortable than the Grado ones.

I'll take some measurements later when Im close to the headphones and get back to you.

On a side note, I went back to the same sale this morning and did not see the second set of HP2's (HP1000's). However, I did spot a pair of Grado SR200's (NOS as well) that I missed yesterday, and some JVC HM-200E binaural Headphones/ recording mics (holographic recording mics). Came in the box with the Styrofoam dummy head, may be new but not sure.

No more carts, but I did find an ultrasonic stylus cleaner which I've been looking for, for a while now. A Signet (AT) SK305, brand new.