• The move to the new server is done. There are some software and database maintenance updates in process. This has us passing the hat around to help out. We appreciate any donations. Seriously, even a dollar helps. The payment page may be found here - https://www.audiokarma.org/support.html

Turntable Cart

I purchased a AT95E a few weeks back. I like what I hear. I've read on this site about the break in times of new cartridges? I assume it's the softening of tone or evening out of the tone. Can anybody clarify this more? And with the AT95E, what in hours, would it be? Thanks.
 
Last edited:
I purchased a AT95E a few weeks back. I like what I hear. I've read on this site about the break in times of new cartridges? I assume it's the softening of tone or evening out of the tone. Can anybody clarify this more? And with the AT95E, what in hours, would it be? Thanks.
Click to expand...

i run mine for about 10 hours on well used lps..the suspension needs time to settle under load..and sometimes the profile finish on the diamond tip of budget cartridges benefit from a bit of groove 'polishing' before the sound smoothens out...

it has been suggested in the cartridge reviews from yesteryear in magazines such as hi-fi choice that record wear tends to be most severe in the first few hours of a stylus's life and that its safer to run in new cartridges on records that are not precious.. :scratch2:
 
melofelo said:
i run mine for about 10 hours on well used lps..the suspension needs time to settle under load..and sometimes the profile finish on the diamond tip of budget cartridges benefit from a bit of groove 'polishing' before the sound smoothens out...

it has been suggested in the cartridge reviews from yesteryear in magazines such as hi-fi choice that record wear tends to be most severe in the first few hours of a stylus's life and that its safer to run in new cartridges on records that are not precious.. :scratch2:
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply !!
 
Hi,

I also have Pioneer PL-12D. And I have been reading discussions concerning/between Shure M97XE and AT-95E.
I think AT suites for my purposes (and my wallet) just fine.

How does the hyper-elliptical (HE) stylus sounds compared to regular setting on a AT-95? And even going further, how about Shibata (SA) stylus on a same cartridge?
 
G'day all, I've recently rediscovered an old AT95 E that I had on an old Dual turntable years ago. A new stylus arrived today so I'll check it out a little later. I might like that cartridge best of all. Mmmmmmm. I'll report back on my impressions! Regards, Felix aka catman.
 
G'day all, well I did do a little listening to my at least twenty year old AT95E with a new stylus last night and the results were very interesting. Not a bad cartridge at all! I did all evaluations at the recommended 2 grams tracking weight in the tonearm of my Pye TA5A turntable with overhang set up as per Baerwald alignment. Sonically it's very balanced with no obvious peaking evident.

I used my DIY Elliott Sound Products P06 phono preamp with the input resistive loading set to 47 k with about 150 picofarads of shunt capacitance. Listening to a sine wave sweep revealed good upper high frequency extension along with good bass performance. The upper high frequency performance was certainly much better than my M97xE at 47 k. The AT95E is well matched into the standard 47 k inputs of most phono preamps.

The tracking performance was good to excellent with one limitation. It did not handle bad record warps particularly well. One song that my M97xE (with Dynamic Stabiliser engaged) handles perfectly, caused the AT95E big headaches with lots of skips and jumps, but that was probably expected. However the overall tracking performance on ordinary unwarped records was fine. I'm not sure why, but there seemed to be 'quieter' playback (less pick up of groove and surface noise) with the AT95E compared to my M97xE and even my Ortofon 2M Red. Interesting and quite welcome! No inner groove distortion was noted.

The output level was also quite interesting, as although quoted as 3.5 mV under standard measurement conditions, subjectively I thought that the output level was equivalent to my M97xE which actually has higher quoted output level. Mmmm, over the years I've learned to distrust 'specifications' somewhat! According to the official specifications the coil inductance of the AT95E cartridge is actually quite low at around 400 mH yet quite high output has resulted suggesting a fairly powerful magnet in there. One side benefit is lower phono preamp 'hiss' levels when the cartridge coil inductance is lower, a definite advantage of moving coil cartridges, amongst other things!

The only slightly negative thing I found was a slight bias in the stereo image to the right for reasons that I'm not certain of. The new stylus assembly under close visual inspection shows a well centred cantilever assembly so I suspect that some aspect of the coil assembly was/is the reason. Using an ohmmeter I did read a slight difference in resistive value of the coils on each channel and this possibly accounts for the noted difference in output balance. This may also be a result of long term lack of use, after all the cartridge is around twenty years old so some kind of break-in improvement with time playing records might be expected to happen. All up, the AT95E is recommended as a pretty good moving magnet cartridge with excellent general performance. Regards, Felix aka catman.
 
I just got Shure M97xE cheaper than normal prices are here in Finland. Shure is still in factory-package, so we are talking about totally new equipmento.
I was about to invest on AT95E, but now it's postponed to (near?)future. Although I saved so much money that I can get now both cartridges if I want.

Now, here's somewhat noobian question:
When using one TT and 2 cartridges, should I get headshell for both cartridges? It would surely make sense, for example alignment issues etc.
So how do you do it? Have lesser valued TT and cartridge for lesser-records or...? :scratch2:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom