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Shibata (S70EX4) recommendation for Goldring/Excel ES-70S Cartridge

boreas said:
Mine started doing that the last time I installed it. I've had other styli that did that and the solution I found was to put a tiny bit of BluTack between the stylus and the cartridge body. (I've found that this works on cartridges that are "microphonic" too.) With the Excel, I found that the BluTack Treatment didn't work the first time but I removed and then reinstalled the stylus and the problem went away.

This raises the possibility that it's the way the stylus seats itself that determines whether the problem will occur and not than the BluTack. But the BT may keep the stylus assembly from moving from the "ideal spot" inside the body once it has found it.

Also, it's possible that the problem is related to humidity. My stylus worked just fine during the summer and autumn and didn't start popping until winter when the humidity is much lower.

John
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My one had a very tight fit so realy no place for Blu Tack, I belaive. But I may be mistaken on that?
Much thighter fit than the original Sontra 500 EX stylus. But the tracking was lousy on this example
anyway. Just lost about $3.50 i freight cost + some mounting and playing time . . .:)
 
To be clear, I put an extremely small piece of BluTack on the "nose" of the cartridge and then installed the stylus, pressing the plastic grip into the Blue Tack, adhering the two pieces and compressing and spreading the BT.

John
 
I must be a lucky ducky. Even though the RH gets down below 20% here, I never have trouble with static discharge. I know my cheap horrible cheesegrater headshells are magical, but.. I do use a sveedish-made antistatic felt mat, but no other antistatic preventatives. A mystery.
 
:D . . . This is the only cartridge/needle combo that has given me this problem ever . . . and I am an old chef.
 
Humidity has dropped to 25% now. Even the blue elliptical in the ES-70S snapped at me a time or two, very rude. The Acutex M315 III STR is behaving well though.

John
 
Static-frog via Walt Kelly:
rowr snap snap.jpg

Ain't It Always the Way Dept. : The DFR DN-25 is back in stock at PUN, but the price has nearly doubled.
 
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Managed to get one at the old price at the tail end of last year and just fitted it to an EEI 800 ,lovely .Can`t seem to find any specs for the 800 so I shall play around with the loading and see what I like .Certainly sounds a tad tastier than the Thacker/Jico elliptical and that combination is sweet as a nut .
ray
 
wualta said:
Ain't It Always the Way Dept. : The DFR DN-25 is back in stock at PUN, but the price has nearly doubled.
Click to expand...
And someone at one time doubted, and did not want to take the tiger in a cage with the inscription buffalo. ;)
 
Got mine setup, and aside from the hiccup below, it sounds and tracks great. It's going to be a contender for my favorite cart for sure and it hasn't even broken in yet. I need more time with the AT95/710-HE combo before I make a final judgement. It passed the torture test on the RCOA test record without a single problem.

The hiccup:
zOaszcf.jpg


I tried to remove the stylus to check something and... The plastic piece pulled right off without the test of the stylus. Fortunately it *seems* like it did so without moving the stylus halfway out and it seems secure. It felt rather tight going in. Honestly, the cart looks classier without it and I'm not convinced it was functional other than for installation/removal. Should I try to superglue it back on or leave it as is? I only have the one stylus for this cart.
 
Now you have something that looks like an Audio-Technica moving coil job, which should buck you up enormously!
As I may have mentioned, the same thing happened to me. The metal shank, the part that holds the cantilever and bearing, should be flush with the square opening that leads immediately inside the cartridge body, but if it's off a mm or so, no harm will come. In this photo of mine after the grip broke off, you see the shank has been pulled out until it's roughly flush with the front edge of the body, but it still sounded just fine. I pushed it back in afterward and thought I heard a little more treble, but couldn't be certain.
1a crop.jpg closeup of DN-25 stylus in ES-70EX4.jpg
 
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You know, this happened to my original Sontra version of this cartridge with the EX stylus. Looks kinda classy, a bit m/c as you say!
Worked fine for years until I upgraded to the shibata.
 
Checked and mine was all the way in or nearly there.

Listening to it again this morning. I don't have my variable loading phono stage built yet, but it's sounding sweet though my ART.

I have a test record with white noise on in it, but I don't know if it's spectrum limited to like 12khz or something like that. What I'd like to do is record some samples from it and my AT95 and so some frequency analysis to see if the different loading is even necessary.
 
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I noticed that this thing has a really nice taper on the cantilever. I wouldn't be surprised if these were NOS that someone bought up and sold to Pickupnaalden under the DFR name. There can't be a ton of factories left that can do nice tapers in cantilevers like that.
 
That looks like it. Pricey though, $112.00. It even appears to have the green dot. I've never understood why JICO reserves some styli for their domestic market.

John
 
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