My AT95E Thoughts

[DonnieBoy]

How do you know whether you have a low, medium or high mass tonearm?

 

[matteos]

I like my AT95e. At the moment I am using an Ortofon Super OM40 which came on my new turntable.. A step up for sure, but even when I eventually progress to a LOMC in the future Im always going to keep an AT95e as a backup.. a great cart for absurdly cheap.

 

[melofelo]

A few magazine reviews from the 80s and 90s used to give some data on the effective mass of the arm..or at least a general guide as to whether a low medium or high complaince cartridge would best suit the arm.
Something like a rega rb250 arm has an quoted effective mass of around 12gm which is often considered a medium mass arm.
There are no hard and fast rules for cartridge matching but generally you want to mate a low mass arm (i.e those found on some 80sDual turntables) with a high compliance cartridge - [soft suspension] i.e ortofon om5e) to keep resonances at bay...conversely a high mass arm would generally pair well with a cartridge that has a stiffer suspension such as that found on some moving coil cartridges.
Not sure of the maths used to determine effective mass though...
probably something too complex for my brain...:sigh: involving moments of inertia ..the mass of arm tube , length of the arm plus headshell either side of the pivot centre..tapered or not..straight or curved...hm...someone waay smarter than me might chime in soon hopefully...

 

[melofelo]

Maybe I'm in the minority but I find that "cartridge break in " is folklore. If it were the case, vinyl break in would be more significant since it is a softer material ( more subject to wear influences). Complete BS.

a bit like fitting new shocks on a car..and wondering why the ride height is lower a few days later ? similar principle perhaps to a cartridge's suspension rating altering slightly once the rubber is used....these things wiggle...and wiggle a LOT..
they also generate heat..:scratch2:

 

[Frank Sol]

There's a reason Mikey gave this cheap cart a thumbs up - it sounds good, PERIOD

 

[iLUVanalog]

the little suspension rubber on medium compliance cartridges probably become a bit more flexible after initial use...and budget stylus tend not be as finely polished to begin with anyway...so running in a new cartridge on well played non valuable vinyl for 10 hours or so certainly doesn't hurt it.
If you think 'break in' is a myth...you're probably never used an AT-110E ...the first 30 hours will drive you nuts with sheer treble detail...and not much else....50 hours in...you'll see why it's still one of my all time favorite budget cartridges...in addition to the AT-95E of course

Don't you know it!!!! I had an AT110E and had not given it the benefit of sufficient break-in time. It sounded god-awful. I did everything to try and get it to sound right (the entire tracking force and anti-skate range...tracking angle...different headshell...different turntable!). I did everything EXCEPT give it enough break-in time! After about a week I gave up and tossed it. I shouldn't have done something like that in anger.

 

[Stacker45]

I have a Technics SL-1200MK2 with an Ortofon 2M Black, and a Yamaha YP-D6, with an AT95e, now, even tough the 2M Black is forensic in it's ability to retrieve détails that the AT95e will gloss over, I still prefer the later with less than perfect LPs. I think that it's very musical, has good bass extension, a smooth midrange, an fairly good treble extension. The best way I can describe the AT95e, is that it does nothing great, but it also does everything good.

To be honest, if I'd have bought the AT95e before the 2M Black, I never would have bought the Black, I had just bought a new in the box SL-1200MK2, and simply got carryed away.

Don't get me wrong I love the Black, It' certainly one of the best MM on the market, but if I'd have known that a $50 cartrige could give me 75% of what the $700 Black could, I'd never would have bought it.

As far as I'm concerned the AT95e is a no brainer, it's a great feeling when you pay so little and get so much in return. I liked the AT95e so much, that I bought a second one for my. Marantz 6350Q.

 

[melofelo]

I have a Technics SL-1200MK2 with an Ortofon 2M Black, and a Yamaha YP-D6, with an AT95e, now, even tough the 2M Black is forensic in it's ability to retrieve détails that the AT95e will gloss over, I still prefer the later with less than perfect LPs. I think that it's very musical, has good bass extension, a smooth midrange, an fairly good treble extension. The best way I can describe the AT95e, is that it does nothing great, but it also does everything good.

+1..:yes: oddly enough I think it's the way it stays focused on the midrange without recessing vocals ,guitar or saxophone that makes this cartridge such fun with several genres of music. Large scale classical tends to trip it up in terms of front to back layering and soundstage width ...and even a mild step up to a well run in at-110e will give you a better illusion of the space around the instruments in live acoustic recording set in a large venue...
but..feed it some acoustic jazz, some john lee hooker, anything with a bold percussive bassline...or even some frantic saxophone or guitar....and it just sings for peanuts...

 

[melofelo]

(I am neither agreeing or disagreeing with Melofelo).....The tracking force range for this cartridge is rather broad (1.5 to 2.5 grams), and AT recommends a tracking force of 2.0 grams. I routinely track mine at 2.2 grams, well within the max of 2.5.

My 95E is mounted on a medium mass SL1200 tonearm, and is never tracked below 2 grams. Additionally, tracking it at 2.2 grams I have not noticed any appreciable loss of "sparkle". If anything, to me the sound is more stable and balanced.

What tracking force is used will depend on the combined effective mass of arm and cartridge...although the 95 is better suited to a medium mass arm.

very good point indeed :thmbsp:
The 95e does have a nice, wide tracking force range,thankfully ,and with the standard 1200 arm having something like a 12gm effective mass not to mention excellent pivot bearings then depending on the headshell,effective length,null points etc I'm sure the optimum will vary between the arms it is installed in. I've also installed the 95e in a 1210 for someone years ago..and they never went back to their stanton 500s again... I do seem to remember using a different downforce setting than that used in my own table..and the same is true of a couple of Pioneer pl12Ds I've donated to friends int he past with this cartridge (again , probably it was a bit a higher than the 1.85 / 1.9 setting i've settled on in my rd60/enigma arm)
I Hope my suggestion didn't sound too much like 'concrete' dogma..if so do forgive as it wasn't intentional ...it does take some experimenting and tweaking to wring the last ounce of sound per £ out of the little green thing.... but there's good audio fun to be had on a shoestring with a bit of patience and fine tuning by ear ..:thmbsp:

 

[iLUVanalog]

No of course it didn't sound like concrete dogma. Individual situations will always vary. I love my AT95's...I have three (two with stock elliptical stylus [AT95E] and one that I was fortunate to get before LPGear discontinued...the hyper-elliptical AT95HE).

 

[Stacker45]

Hmmm!, maybe I should try my AT95e on my SL-1200 MK2, I don't expect it to put the 2M Black to shame, but who knows?, I might be pleasently surprised.

 

[guest110]

Vince, it's ok to disagree with those who believe in break-in.

It's NOT ok to refer to them (myself included) as "dreamers"....just as it would not be ok for me to refer to you as a douche for making such a comment.

Ok, I'm definitely a douchebag then. If cartridge break in is significant, then we must disregard every significant review ever written as none of them tested the cartridge long enough to hear the device in its true form. Similarly, those new performance car track tests are crap as the test vehicles were virtually new and un-sagged. Hogwash and dougebagery to be sure. In 45 years of TT ownership and hundreds of cartridges, I've never been able to audibly detect "break in". Transducer physics are well understood and remarkably predictable. Stylus wear yes, tube break in no doubt, but never a cartridge, other than the first few plays. I'm sure I'm in the minority as I know bigger doughebags that claim their cables experience break in.
Hence my advice to the OP...if you have it properly set up and are unhappy with the sound, get a different cartridge as it will not change very much over time.

 

[Stacker45]

I'm far from beeing an expert, so please don't laugh, but the way I see it, is that maybe what we refer to as cartridge break in, might just be the LP ''molding'' itself to the new cartridge, I mean diamond is much harder than vinyl, isn't it?