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Pickering XV-15 cartridge fans and users, spout for a while!

tracking...

By the way I track regularly at 1.0g. Of course with the brush it will be 2g. Depends on the LP flatness and if my wife is using the washing machine.
Then it's more like 2.5g to 3.5g.
I live in a double wide and there is no foundation. The entire building sits on 2 dozen or so pilings made of concrete block and shimmed to level. They sit on 2 solid concrete runners that are 8 ft. wide and 50 feet long and 6" deep into the earth. There is nothing controlling lateral forces.

Paul
 
pdm4606 said:
I use an XV-15 1200e with a choice of styli. Since I rebuilt my TT setup and built my 18" long tonearm the highs have been way too high and loud. I tried a bunch of things like more tracking force, less tracking force, vertical tracking angle adjustment, mass increase up and down, and a couple of others. It still sounds good but highs still too much. I finally built a dual potentiometer setup to put more load on the output. That did the trick. I tune it in until it sounds reasonable and away I go. All sounds good now.
I must adjust for nearly every LP.
I use a 100k audio taper dual pot.
I finally am happy with the setup and continue to enjoy it.
See my thread on "long tonearm time" for photos.

Paul
Click to expand...

What would those be?

And, as you probably know, the "/1200E" refers to the stylus originally fitted, a D1200. Functionally, therefore, the cartridge becomes whatever model to which the stylus installed corresponds.

John
 
Well guys , back after driving around Vermont, checking out the Fall foliage. My Jazz and Rock records sound great, the real test was a couple of classical, mainly 1812 Overture. Tracking at 0.9g, the stylus sounds beautiful. No IGD, bells have a nice airy ring, violins , perfect.

So I guess I didn't do damage , playing with my tweezers.

Those audiophile toothpicks and Gold paper clips, must cost a fortune. $10-20 a pc. :scratch2: I don't beleive I've ever seen a gold paper clip.

Seems, 0.9g has the minimal amount of sink and AS is about 0.5, or maybe no AS, no sure.

I'm going to keep mt eyes pealed for another XV-15 and get a 4606-DEX for it and put it on a standard bayonet headshell for my YP-701. Nice thread, thus far.
 
kcblair said:
I'm going to keep mt eyes pealed for another XV-15 and get a 4606-DEX for it and put it on a standard bayonet headshell for my YP-701. Nice thread, thus far.
Click to expand...

Good idea. In fact, there are two $40-is cartridges on eBay right now, one with no stylus and the other with a V-15 stylus. The one with no stylus has the original mounting hardware which is nice to have.

The one with the wrong stylus is an interesting one in that it's an early example and differs from later cartridges in that it has a much shallower mounting angle, almost flat. I think this is the style Needlestein was waxing poetical about earlier in the thread. I have one too, in the form of a Stanton 681EE, and I do like it.

Hell, get both and compare!

John
 
boreas said:
Good idea. In fact, there are two $40-is cartridges on eBay right now, one with no stylus and the other with a V-15 stylus. The one with no stylus has the original mounting hardware which is nice to have.

The one with the wrong stylus is an interesting one in that it's an early example and differs from later cartridges in that it has a much shallower mounting angle, almost flat. I think this is the style Needlestein was waxing poetical about earlier in the thread. I have one too, in the form of a Stanton 681EE, and I do like it.

Hell, get both and compare!

John
Click to expand...
Yes John, I noticed those 2, question the rubber/plastic mounting grommets, are they necessary ? My XV-15 is mounted without those, But I do have some on a Stanton 500 MKII I'm using.
 
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kcblair said:
Yes John, I noticed those 2, question the rubber mounting grommets, are they necessary ? My XV-15 is mounted without those, But I do have some on a Stanton 500 MKII I'm using.
Click to expand...

Not necessary but I like to use them. They're convenient and might afford a bit of resonance damping too.

John
 
Does anyone use one of these old first-generation (for Pickering) CD-4 carts for stereo playback?
mine, Nov 2013.JPG
 
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kcblair said:
Seems, 0.9g has the minimal amount of sink and AS is about 0.5, or maybe no AS, no sure.

.
Click to expand...

So, I've never really considered this before. I should be looking at deflection of the cantelever for minimal movement? I guess I always assumed that there was going to be some and that the manufacturers took this into consideration when they recommended a certain range for VTF.

For example, on the low end say at .75g deflection is .1mm and at the high end of 1.5g deflection is at .5mm but its all good because the end of the tube is still in the "sweet spot" of the magnets.

Is this the case or should I be looking for the VTF where the least amount of deflection occurs within the recommended range?

This made me look at my TT last night before bed that sports a 1200e body with a NOS 625e stylus to see for myself how much it deflects when it rests on the record and I found that where I had it set (1.5g) there was a bit...say 1mm or so. I adjusted the VTF lighter until I saw the least amount and ended up at 1.0g.

I am just about to play test to see how it sounds. I was at 1.5g originally out of habit...I like to go max.
 
classicform said:
So, I've never really considered this before. I should be looking at deflection of the cantelever for minimal movement? I guess I always assumed that there was going to be some and that the manufacturers took this into consideration when they recommended a certain range for VTF.

For example, on the low end say at .75g deflection is .1mm and at the high end of 1.5g deflection is at .5mm but its all good because the end of the tube is still in the "sweet spot" of the magnets.

Is this the case or should I be looking for the VTF where the least amount of deflection occurs within the recommended range?

This made me look at my TT last night before bed that sports a 1200e body with a NOS 625e stylus to see for myself how much it deflects when it rests on the record and I found that where I had it set (1.5g) there was a bit...say 1mm or so. I adjusted the VTF lighter until I saw the least amount and ended up at 1.0g.

I am just about to play test to see how it sounds. I was at 1.5g originally out of habit...I like to go max.
Click to expand...

This was just a theory. I compared the sink or deflection to some other cartridges. It's good to know, there is an amount of deflection built in. So I'm going back to 1.0g and spend some time listening today. This is a very interesting stylus. First one that had such a low tracking force range. Thanks
 
You want some 'sink', otherwise it would like having a car suspension that would let the body fly up off the springs-- or the diamond could become airborne at the top of even a tiny warp. And it goes without saying that tracking would suffer badly. VTF already varies during play; you don't want it to approach zero.
 
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wualta said:
You want some 'sink', otherwise it would like having a car suspension that would fly up off the springs-- or the diamond could become airborne at the top of even a tiny warp. And it goes without saying that tracking would suffer badly. VTF already varies during play; you don't want it to approach zero.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I reset the VTF, so the sink is similar to other carts I have installed. That puts me up to 0.95g. Maybe bump it to 1.0. The sink is close to 1mm.
 
Earlier in the thread, I mentioned a Pfanstiehl .2x.7 Stanton-style I tried unsuccessfully on my XV-15. Noisey brush, sibilance after playing a few sides. Tried realigning it to get rid of the sibilance....no luck. It was the Pfanstiehl 4822-DEE.

Today, after reading in the old Ed Sauders 681EEE thread which someone bumped to reactivate that needlestein (also on this thread) thought the Pfanstiehl 4822-DEE was a better stylus than one being talked about there, I decided to retry my copy of that needle on my XV-15, which is now on my ELAC Miracord 50H TT. The sunnahvahgun is working and sounding great, and definitely better than the pretty good Pickering-style generic D750 I had been using. Still want to try that EVG...DEX needle, but I'm having fun listening to really great sounding jazz vocal, classical, rock, folk, etc.... It seems the stylus wasn't defective, except for the brush, not being used. It seems to be easier (for me) to align it optimally on the Miracord.
 
Ordered the 4606-DEX from Gary close to midnight on Saturday. Delivered today, Wednesday. Well packaged.

Will install it this weekend.
 
Mine came today too. I took especial note of his careful packing of this stylus. Clever and effective, with no load on the cantilever that's so often found with Pfanstiehl-type packaging.
 
needlestein,

Thanks for the posting, and especially the info about VTF for that needle. I found myself bumping up the VTF yesterday, but I won't worry now knowing I'm still below what you say is the real optimum.

I only have aftermarket brushes for either Pickering or Stanton style needles, so I just leave them off.

I've switched receivers, at least temporarily -- from a 1983 Kenwood KR-750 to a 1971 Kenwood KR-5150 -- and the stylus is sounding different now. I think it is mainly that the older amp is more bassy, and too much bass makes the big cheap AV speakers I'm using too boomy, reducing definition in mids and highs. The 15" woofers don't need to be driven very much to reveal the bass in the source. Gonna dial the bass setting down to -4 today. That worked well with another receiver, but on the KR-750 I could keep the bass set flat.
 
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