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Unknown Adcom cart that came with thorens 125/lustre gst arm

vaathi

vaathi

baski
Subscriber
Hello fellow Audio Enthusiasts...
Picked up Thorens 125 with Acos lustre GST-1 tonearm with Adcom cartridge. I could not figure out the model number of the cart. I have attached couple of pics of the cart. As always your help is appreciated.

Thanks in advance..
-baskiIMG_6299.JPG IMG_6300.JPG IMG_6305.JPG IMG_6306.JPG
 
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I used to have a broken one. I think the model name is on the top. Adcom cartridges were generally very fine -- technically and soundwise very well done, but not aimed at the mystical high end.
I'd add that those are fancy pants cartridge leads, which suggests that the previous owner was pretty ambitious, which then strengthens the idea that its a good cartridge.
 
Those Adcom cartridges were manufactured by Coral. Same as the SAE cartridges that were released in that time period. Some of them had line contact styli, others elliptical. A few years back an NOS stash was uncovered, and they were being sold on the net for $200 to $250 as I recall. Those are long gone. What you have is a respectable moving coil that sold at a fairly somewhat reasonable price. To replace it today it would probably cost $400 to $500, although those cartridges might have a greater degree of refinement than the Adcom.

Regards
Mister Pig
 
Adcom XCLT, cross coil Line trace with the red rubber around the stylus. High output moving coil. Sounds very nice. Does nothing wrong.

Missed the pic of the front of the cartridge with the wide white line and the ADCOM name up the side. But since I have one of those, no need on my part.
 
Forgot to ask earlier. Diamond tip seems to very tiny. I need to test if the cart works. Will update the thread tomorrow with my experiments. How good is the lustre gst tonearm..
 
It should be a HOMC, so you can use it in a MM phono pre. I have an SAE 1000LT myself.I also had the LOMC version which was the 900LT (blue dot).

As Mr. Pig stated,Coral built those. Pretty decent cartridges. And the red dot made it easier to line things up when installing as it's right where the diamond tip is.
 
sretan,

From my system, the bass can be a little bloaty at times, and the highs roll off slightly lower than some of my MM carts (Stanton 881S MKII, Stanton 681EEE, Ortfofon VMS 30E MKII).

Again, on my system it sounds this way. I've read a lot of comments prior to buying the cartridge,and people were comparing it to the Dynavector with the Dynavector doing slightly better for about 65% of the people who commented on it. I don't know if they actually A/B'd them, but that was the feedback I read.

I actually read about the SAE on the Graham Slee forum when I was asking about cartridge recommendations.

vaathi, if you decide to get rid of the cart, I may be interested in it. (Hope I'm not out of line with this reply)
 
Hi,

No bass bloat on the turntable / arm I heard it, but I guess you could
say the treble was a little on the reticent side if you like it bright.
I just agree with BS, its good, and it does nothing wrong.

I could easily live with one in my turntable / arm, I suspect.

rgds, sreten.
 
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As you see in the pics, the leads were out and broken. I bought head-shell leads from auction site for 6 bux and connected the TD125 to Yaqin Ms12B. Yaqin was earlier connected to Ortofon OM-5E in Orbit turntable.. Yaqin has NOS Amperex 12ax7 which still flashes when I switch it on.. I know this is not apple to apple comparison, When I used the Adcom XLCT I see the volume is very low and details are good.. I did feel bass was lacking.. Ortofon had much more bass and volume obviously because it is MM.. I did not change the yaqin and fisher 500c volume when I switched the tables...
 
I found resistance loading in my phone stage affected the over all tone of my GAS Sleeping Beauty carts which are I imagine pretty similar to this cart. If your preamp/phono stage allows for this I would give it a try.

Loading specs are on the Vinylengine website.

Good luck

Eric
 
Hi,

Compared to a nice MC nearly all budget MM's have a relatively
downtilted response, more bass and less treble overall. In the
larger scheme of things the MC's tend to be more accurate.

rgds sreten.
 
sreten said:
Hi,

I heard a SAE1000LT is a pretty good arm, really rather good, near flawless.

rgds, sreten.
Click to expand...

Need a clarification. I think you meant you heard the SAE in a good arm, not that it is a good arm.

There were two folks in our group that bought the SAE based on the price and listening to my Adcom XCLT. They both enjoyed them and both have moved up the ladder. One to a ZYX Yatra and the other to an AT MC, IIRC. I still have my Adcom but it is one of about 4 cartridges I use.
 
Thanks all for your input.
@hifitommy You have no idea about my Thorens woes. I even vented out in AK about a botched deal which involved 4 hr drive...:)
@Blue Shadow What preamp will better suite a cart like this. I have Marantz 7T and CA2000/3000 too.. Also how good is the preamp in scott 399.
@62sunbeam I will read about resistance loading the preamp to see if it helps..
 
The Adcom crosscoil high output moving coil cartridges like to go into a normal phono input with a bit more gain on the knob required for full volume compared to a normal MM cartridge. The cartridge output is just a bit lower than the typical MM cartridge.
 
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