Just acquired an Audio Technica AT ML-180 cartridge with broken cantilever and was looking for advice on where to get a new cantilever rebuild and what material to choose from. My preference is a new Boron cantilever but was not sure who, apart from Soundsmith, offers this service.
Also would like to know which is the best tonearm to use for this cartridge once it's fixed. It can either go on my Audiomods Series 5 (eff. mass approx. 11g) or the arm on my Yamaha GT 2000 which has an effective mass of approx. 20g.
The original is gold plated hollow pipe boron with tiny nude microline stylus, i have a few samples of perfectly working at-ml180 and at-ml170. I also have a few broken samples of both, one of them is here. I think the best option is Expert Stylus & Cartridge Co. service in UK, they are very good in communication and very well organized, reasonable prices (imo). Contact Email: info@expertstylus.co.uk
Here is the info i got from them: "We shall need to carry out a detailed examination and assuming we find the cartridge repairable, our charges to carry out a complete overhaul to include materials as necessary and auditioning will be between £291.00 - £330.00. With the work carried out we aim to return the cartridge to as near new condition as possible. Should we find the cartridge in relatively good order, apart from a badly damaged cantilever or the stylus to be showing excessive wear, our chatges will vary between £120.00 - £180.00."
I use my AT-ML180 and AT-ML170 on Victor UA-7045, Lustre GST-801 and Reed 3P "12 Cocobolo.
Yeah, closer to the original, unfortunately hollow pipe boron is not available anymore in the world (which makes the original cartridge so special).
I would use boron with microline/microridge type of diamonds. They call it paratrace. See below what they said:
"We manufacture cantilevers in aluminium, boron and sapphire. I would also advise the Paratrace profile diamond is possibly the most advanced diamond produced world wide." -ExpertStylus
SME III w/ 5.0 g teak damped titanium nitride S-shaped want + fluid damping is designed especially for HQ HC MM cartrides. You will have a terrific combo. Good luck for searching
Never seen AT-ML160, it can be closer to AT-ML150 which has a beryllium cantilever, the 150 is also very good cartridge, but not as good as the 170.
AT-ML180 is completely different compard to all of them.
The problem with the 160 models is that you will not find it in the catalog where this number simply missed, there are 140, 150, 170, 180 in comparison chart, but there is nothing about 160. Maybe the 160 was not for Japanese marked and that’s the reason i do not see it in the catalogs?
I still have my second spare of the AT-ML170 in fully working condition if anyone need it.
However, the price for refurbishing of the broken needle is not equal to the price of the perfectly working sample of AT-ML170 or AT-ML180 cartridge. If the AT-ML170 normally goes for $750+ in working order, the AT-ML180 goes for over $1000. While the re-cantilevering starts from $250 (SoundSmith) or $400 (ExpertStylus).
Dear @ateal: I think your today tonearm will works fine as a fact you can't say after the re-building which will be the new compliance figure or its VTF range.
I was a fan of the 180 but not now. In the other side and with a vintage cartridge when the cantilever, stylus tip shape and dampers are changed the cartridge will performs with different performance quality levels.
So you can choose boron but you can choose by material too that by its characteristics is better than boron. It's just an election, both can sounds good but I don't know for sure wich one can have higher quality levels.
@ateal I'm gonna send one of my Stanton CS-100 WOS to Expert Stylus in the future to get Paratrance diamond and new cantilever. Then i will be able to compare it to the original Stereohedron. For rare Stanton top of the line cartridge owner the Expert Stylus was numero uno service. That's how i know about them, loads of feedbacks online.
Now we have Nandrik as an advocate of Expert Stylus.
The low pound is maybe the only one good thing about brexit.
If you will send them your Audio-Technica let us know. Then i will think about mine
But do you have the original Audio-Technica as the reference to compare the sound? If not then you never know what you got after refurbishing.
There is nother service in UK called NordWest Analogue, but the guy never responded to my request regarding Audio-Technica and his prices is higher, you can try
www.northwestanalogue.com/
Allaerts MC 2 - is that the one which cost like a used car ?
Well, thanks for the offer, but i will stick to my working AT-ML180 OCC It was a genius combination to end up with 300 quid offer for AT-ML160, someone should buy it to compared to 170 and tell me the truth.
I just want to add one very important thing you have missed. The generator of your AT-ML180 is electrically different from all previous models, so it is not designed to use styli from lower models. Most likely those styli will never sound correct with such a different generator. The inductance of AT-ML180 is different than AT-ML170, 160, 150, 140.
If your generator is AT-ML180 the replacement stylus must be ATN180ML.
But if your generator is not the AT-ML180 then you don’t have any problem to chande the styli, because 170,150,140 generators are the same (electrically). However, for the same reason you can't use ATN180ML stylus from AT-ML180 cart on any other cartridge in AT-ML line.
So i think the only option is to refurbish your existing stylus by someone who understand that at-ml180 is very special cartridge.
Dear @ateal: I can't understand why you are taking so much trouble with that AT. If I was you I just put on sale and at the same time look for other MM alternatives that can be vintage or today ones that are very good performers.
If you insist in your cartridge refurbish then Northwest named by @chakster is the better quality option to do that work.
@rauliruegas well, it's not easy to sell broken carts even if the repair service available, to find MM cart equal to AT-ML180 is not easy, especially for the price for repair (about 350 pounds).I'm not sure why do you think one service in UK is better than other. Personally i have never use repair service in UK. But Nordwest Analogue ignored by request made with his contact form on their website. But Exdpert Stylus repliad to all my messages immediately. As far as i know the Expert Stylus is manufacturer with 40 years of experience in refurbishing. Not sure how old is Dominic (Nordwest Analogue), but what is good is that anyone can see his portfolio, i believe his service is very good, but for premium prices.
@nandric playing re-tippers by ourself is not for everyone to transplant the cantilever from one to another cart. I think @ateal looking for easiest solution. But the manufacturer voiced their top model with their top generator, there are many internal difference in the generator, but even vertical tracking angle of the cantilever itself is different. Swapping 170 styli with 180 styli is not a good idea. But no problem to swap 170 and 150/140. Anyone can find comparison chart of data for AT-Ml series in the gallery here.
@ateal the guy you are quoting know nothing about the difference between two models if he think that 180 is Beryllium (in fact it is Boron). However there is a comment about the difference between 180 and all others (which is correct). I think i already explained why 180 is a different cartridge, look at the data.
I have a few 170 and 180 cartridges and i can swap the styli between them, they will fit, but they will not sound good/correct if the generators are swapped (they are different). 180 is a stand alone cartridge. So you can not upgrade the 170/150 cartridge with ANT180ML stylus and vice versa.
You need a retipper who really understand the subject, not just gluing whatever stylus/cantilever of this at-ml180 cartridge.
Also i would never trust people who deal with Andy at Needle Clinic, i saw his woks on the pictures and it’s very bad quality, awful. So the advice to deal with Needle Clinic is a very bad advice.
You have mentioned Garrott service in Australia, you should know that the brothers are no longer available, but the company has a good reputation. They can provide Micro Tracer or Micro Scanner diamonds along with Fritz Gyger (FG) diamond - this is a very good option if they can offer a Boron Cantilever.
BTW beryllium is better cantilever material than boron.
Even better than ’’gold plated boron ’’
I can say for sure what is better in terms of cantilevers (i like beryllium on some carts, i like boron on others, and even aluminum on some of them), but i can say for sure that AT-ML180 is better than AT-ML170 and all previous models i have tried. The AT-ML180 was released in 1993 and it was the last and ultimate cartridge in this series. The AT-ML170 was made in the 80s (nearly 10 years earlier than AL-ML180). Earlier version have been discontinued when AT-ML180 was made.
I don’t really care what retipper can do with MM cartridge, but that’s the only way to get an old cart back to life (when the original stylus is not available). Remember SoundSmith and his Grace refurbishing (so many people use that option to replace the OG cantilever). And they can do that. It’s not the original sound, but it will work. Using another stylus from lower model can be an option, but in case with AT-ML180 is not the best solution. I think it’s better to buy the whole cartridge + stylus (aka the AT-ML15, 160 or more expensive AT-ML170) than tryin to buy just the stylus from inferior model to make sure it’s not equal to the performance level of the original stylus of the top model supposed to be used with this cart from the start (just a waste of money). The AT-ML150 is not a rare cartridge and the price is not high, so why not just buy the whole cartridge+stylus? The AT-ML180 deserve a much better stylus (the original, but it’s impossible to find separately from the cart). If someone can refurbish ATN180ML (Expert Stylus can do that, they told me) i don’t see the reason not to do so.
p.s. I would not advice people to use for example the stylus from Technics EPC 100c mk1 on Technics EPC 100c MK4 even if they are interchangeable mechanically. It make no sence (imo).
Well, i don't make such conclussion about cantilevers apart from the cartridge this cantilever designed for. As i said i have all types of cantilevers on my original cartridges (beryllium, sapphire, boron, titanium, aluminium etc) except maybe a diamond cantilever. Who cares about cantilever materials alone? It's much more important in which cartridge and how it was used by the original designer. As stated in my ad this AT-ML170 can be refurbished by SoundSmith with his Ruby cantilever with Nude Contact Line stylus just for $250 in the USA. So it is not necessary to pay 350 pounds for Boron with Paratrace from Expert Stylus. Of course it's up to the owner. Ateal already have his cartridge and there are many ways to refurbish it with different materials from the different retippers in the different countries.
Buyin another fully working cartridge like your AT-ML160 is another option, but even taking this option the owner of the broken AT-ML180 can refurbish it to have another cartridge on hands, not just throw it away for nothing. I also have another AT-ML180 OCC with broken cantilever and that's why this case is interesting for me.
We're all know what we can try to find the original styli or inferior styli from the lower models, but this is not the case here!
^ Quite rightly so. Ateal, your AT is a very special cartridge and deserves the best stylus there possibly exists. More precicely, it must have a miniatyre ML stylus tip ; )
OK, as an update, I was fortunate to find a brand new ML150 stylus from Japan and it arrived today.
After thorough inspection to check it was indeed brand new I fitted it to the ML180 body and installed it on the not so ideal Yamaha GT2000 tonearm. I say not so ideal as the tonearm and headshell have a combined effective mass of 19g and this cart really needs to be on a much lighter tonearm like my Audiomods which is fitted to my Oracle Delphi.
Now I should point out that it is my intention to rebuild the ML 180 stylus, but I wanted to hear the potential of the cart before I shell out a lot of money on a new cantilever and exotic stylus.
Well my first impressions are very favorable there is great detail, great tone, expansive soundstage, quiet in the groove and reasonably smooth delivery. Whilst it sounds very good you can tell it needs breaking in and should get better with more play.
As as a reference point for my observations my other carts are Grace F9 Ruby, Spectral Reference, Shinon Boron Red, Fidelity Research FR1 MK3F, Ortofon SPU. From first impressions I think this cart configuration holds its own in this company.
@ateal great, if you like the ANT150ML stylus on lower inductance AT-ML180 body then you will be blown away buy the quality of the original ATN180ML stylus if you will ever find it, the difference between 150 and 180 is huge (owned both). ATN170ML is also much better that 150 in my opinion. I hope you will find them. My first cart in this series was the AT-ML150 and the sound quality was very good, then i decided to look for higher models (170 and 180). Luckily i got them, even some spares. BTW i have the original AT-ML150 generator as a spare for your ATN150ML stylus (they are made for each other, while the AT-ML180 is not perfect match for your stylus because of the different generator :). The broken ATN170-ML stylus for experiments also included. I wish someone can rebuild this and share the experience. If rebuild version can suprass the AT-ML150 then it worth it. The mid mass tonearm is OK for them.
Dear @ateal: Good that’s working fine and as you said it will be better with more play hours.
Now, the 150/170 has almost the same stylus tip than 180 and this makes almost no difference per sé, even the 180 is more demanding on its VTA/SRA set up.
The inductance issue that chakster is talking is not a day and nigth difference, those 3 models shares same output level. Compliance is the same and this point is important. So your cartridge is almost a 180 and the only way to compare it vs the original is to have the original and attest what you really are losting with the 180/150 combination you are playing rigth now.
Dear @ateal: Thank's to your patience you found out that 150, good .
Now, you can make serious quality improvements in what you have: as you can note the cantilever/sttylus holder build material is not exactly the same in the 180 and 150, where the 180 is less resonant and this means lower signal degradation vs the 150. It makes a difference for the better.
So you have the alternative to send both to Northwest for he can make the change in the 150 to the 180 holder or better yet that Northwest takes the cantilever/stylus from the 150 and put in the 180 holder. Of course that you have to ask Northwest if they can do that work, my take is that they can. Only an opinion.
Thanks Raul for your helpful comments. Some very good things to consider.
Can I ask a simple question. Apart from the cantilever, stylus and suspension what else is installed in the replacement stylus holder. Is there something electrical, or is all that in the cartridge body.
The reason I ask is that there is a rectangular shape on the underside of the stylus with a screw, and I wondered if this held something.
I think I may have answered my question. The only other components in the stylus holder apart from cantilever, stylus and suspension is the compliance adjustment screw and the suspension filament.
Therefore the only difference I can see between the ML150 stylus and the ML180 stylus is the cantilever material (boron tube vs Beryllium) and size of microline stylus (0.08 vs 010).
Chakster, thanks for those images they are very interesting.
I am guessing from those photos and the differences you have personally heard between 150 and 170, it all comes down to the mass and rigidity of the cantilever.
I think it is this single factor that sets the two apart. Especially since the diamond profile and size are the same.
I therefore agree with everyones comments that the only way to improve would be to have a short boron tube cantilever installed with a microline type stylus.
Interestingly enough I have had a verbal quote from Van Den Hul who can provide new boron pipe cantilever with VDH natural diamond and rebuild the suspension, all for US$750 incl. shipping and insurance.
I may give it some consideration, however I feel very happy with the current set up especially since it is a brand new stylus.
Therefore the only difference I can see between the ML150 stylus and the ML180 stylus is the cantilever material (boron tube vs Beryllium) and size of microline stylus (0.08 vs 010).
Chakster can I ask what the main sound differences were between the 150 and the 170. For example frequency extension, soundstaging, tone, imaging, smoothness, etc, etc.
If you have the 180 generator then all you need is a better stylus/cantilever designed for this generator.
I do not have my old AT-ML150 on hands now, but i have AT-ML170 and AT-ML180 - my top cartridges, i just love them, they do everything right compared to many other serious cartridges of much higher price. Last night i played records with AT-ML180 on Victor UA-7045 tonearm against FR-7f on Lustre GST-801 tonearm with Luxman silver SUT. I have not used AT-ML180 for a while, but the sound of than Audio-Technica is just spectacular! I can not say the same about AT-ML150, it was good, but not so impressive. Cartridges are impressive of not, but it's important to make comparison. Two days ago i just put together my new stands for 2 Luxman PD-444 aroung a rack with different phono stages, sut, headamp. Now i can use 4 tonearms, must be some fun for the winter.
Chakster, thanks for the reply. I will certainly keep a look out for an ML170 or ML180 stylus but for now I will probably hold off on rebuilding the damaged ML180 Cart as I do not think it will ever reproduce the sound like the original would.
You’re right, it will be a different cartridge anyway, but i will tell you that replacement styli for AT-ML170 and AT-ML180 are impossible to find even in Japan, i have never seen any of them in the past 3 years, only with used cartridges. That’s the problem, the stylus for AT-ML150 is easy to find, but the styli for higher AT models are impossible to find NOS or used.
Can I ask what determines the frequency range, for example 5 to 40,000. Is it the cartridge body/generator or is it the cantilever/stylus?
Both! It's how they are working together. Once i replaced styli between high and low inductance generators, the stylus from high inductance and high output Stanton does not sound good on low inductance and low output Stanton. It was a total mismatch! So when you swap the styli it is not that easy if the generator and stylus are not designed to work together and not tuned by the manufacturer for each other.
Thanks for the explanation Chakster. Thankfully it appears there is no noticeable mismatch with the 150 on the 180 body. I'm sure I would hear it if there was.
Can I ask what the effective mass of the Victor UA 7045 tonearm is and does it allow for damping. Reason for asking is to determine whether this cart would be better on my 10g Audiomods arm than it is on my 19g Yamaha GT2000 arm.
Victor UA-7045 is superb tonearm, i like everything about this arm and i have many tonearms to compare, i think this is the most underrated tonearm ever (which is good for the buyers). It was top of the line Victor tonearm for their TT-101 turntable and X-1 / X-1II cartridges for a perfect match with Victor headshell. I use Grace HS-6 Carbon-Fiber headshell with my AT-ML180 now. I don't kno any better tonearm for the price of Victor UA-7045 (they are under $700 in perfect condition, those with bended counterweight must be avoided). There is an additional counterweight to use with heavier cartridges, but i don't use MC carts on this tonearm. I have a spare of this tonearm btw.
The compliance of the Victor X-1II:
*Dynamic Compliance (@100Hz): 12cu At 10Hz this dynamic compliance would be about 20cu
The compliance of the AT-ML150-170-180: *Dynamic Compliance (@100Hz): 10cu
At 10Hz this dynamic compliance would be about 17-20cu.
(*100Hz figure must be converted to 10Hz figure, the easiest way is to multiply it on 1.7 or on 2)
P.S. I know people use Audiomods Arm mostly for low compliance Denon 103 and some other MC cartridges. The Audiomods is actually a modified Rega tonearm. But since the AT-ML180 is not a high compliance cartridge i think you can use it on Audiomods.
There is another great Audio-Technica cartridge you may considering. It's AT20SLa from the late 70's. This model with beryllium cantilever is a killer. The compliance is higher than AT-ML series. I've come across Dlaloum statement about that old model. Raul also reviewd it back in the day on audiogon. Model AT20SLa LIMITED EDITION cartridges are individually nand-selected for all parameters, including flattest possible response to 50 000 Hz! The limited quantity of cartridges thus obtained represent "the best of the best!"
"This is a really top notch cartridge, one of the very best, and was a competitor to the V15V in its day... It is a high compliance design... VERY highly recommended!! Original styli are getting scarce. This cartridge ranks up there as one of my absolute favourites". -Dlaloum
Dear @ateal: Forgeret what @chakster is telling about the so very low differences in the inductance on the 150 vs 180, this is not what makes the differences in performance. The 150 stylus replacement you have is similar as the 170 and difference with the 180 other than the stylus tip ( non significant ) size is the cantilever but boron and beryllium are very good.
Before you decide to send the cartridge to Vdh ask to Northwest what I told you, you can’t lost nothing if you do it and I think that could be really inexpensive to do those changes.
In the other side, you have no problem with your 10 grs. tonearm for the 180.
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