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Micro Acoustics cartridge identification.

RedShoe

RedShoe

Member
Good morning all,
Picked up a turntable this weekend. It has a Micro Acoustics cartridge with no ID but the serial number on it. Any way to ID which cartridge this is? The serial number is 8-74866 Thanks for your help.
 
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Unlike much of the other makes, MA carts are pretty easy to identify with a pic. But unless the stylus is in great shape, it’s sort of a moot point as they are NLA from anywhere. If there is no label, then chances are good its a 282e, as they were their most common cart, and the labels are known to fall off. Lots of pics already online to compare against.
 
Even with a worn stylus, they are worth money because they can be retipped, and there are many who love them. The MAs were actually ceramic/piezo cartridges (MicroAcoustics was essentially Sonotone which had been a major maker of ceramic cartridges), but the MA cartidges included a little circuit that brought the voltage down to MM input levels. Among other virtues, they were unaffected by loading, and, rather like the Decca Londons, the generating elements were connected in front of the pivot point, which gave remarkable transient accuracy. Or so it was said.
I used to think they were bright, but that was because I had heard them, back when they were made, with the rather harsh consumer electronics of the time, but on better behaved equipment, they are very nice.
 
Preaching to the choir, though I don’t think anyone is retipping beryllium shafts, right? I have a couple of different MAs, and in the right table (IIRC, they are high compliance?) and right record/music they are very nice and revealing and tracked very well, especially at their time. Transient response is excellent. I really liked their low VTFs. But overall, they all seem to be more sensitive to groove noise compared to a line contact stylus like a JICO SAS, which also has excellent transient performance with a tip that didn’t exist back then. The immunity to loading is a pro and con as sometimes changing loading allows tailoring of the cart to your gear for the response you are looking for. With the MA’s, it is what it is.
 
perryinva said:
Unlike much of the other makes, MA carts are pretty easy to identify with a pic. But unless the stylus is in great shape, it’s sort of a moot point as they are NLA from anywhere. If there is no label, then chances are good its a 282e, as they were their most common cart, and the labels are known to fall off. Lots of pics already online to compare against.
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But they can be retipped which isxwell worth doing
Chris
 
perryinva said:
Preaching to the choir, though I don’t think anyone is retipping beryllium shafts, right? I have a couple of different MAs, and in the right table (IIRC, they are high compliance?) and right record/music they are very nice and revealing and tracked very well, especially at their time. Transient response is excellent. I really liked their low VTFs. But overall, they all seem to be more sensitive to groove noise compared to a line contact stylus like a JICO SAS, which also has excellent transient performance with a tip that didn’t exist back then. The immunity to loading is a pro and con as sometimes changing loading allows tailoring of the cart to your gear for the response you are looking for. With the MA’s, it is what it is.
Click to expand...
Yes they are..
Chris
 
Fagedabowdit said:
I was told the same thing by Andy Kim. He told me beryllium would shatter if you tried to retip it. Well, maybe if he tried to retip it. But other retippers seem to have worked out how to do it.

Google “Groovetickler”




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Andy and Kim are not able to do diamond only retips so they talk people into cantilever replacements. I have worked on several carts where they have previously cut off a perfectly good boron cantilever to do a retip.
Any good retipper can retip this cart diamond only and diamond onlyon this cart is the only way to go.
Chris
 
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