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Best cartridge for very old worn vinyl

Fellow vinyl junkies,
I have a weakness for old vinyl (particularly early oval Argo choral recordings circa 1958-1969).
Almost invariably these suffer from worn grooves, the effects of god knows what misaligned agricultural arms/cartridges over several decades, even the ones marked “near mint” by professional sellers.
I have a range of cartridges, including Decca London Reference, Koetsus, SPUs and Shure V15 111.
These go in an FR66 arm. Not all of these are necessarily ideal for this job...:)
What do you guys reckon is the best cartridge for these types of records?
Key requirements are not to be flustered by the challenges these ancient slabs of vinyl hold while doing the best job of producing something resembling music ?
Cheers !
howardalex

Showing 1 response by sdrsdrsdr

sdrsdrsdr
196 posts
 
@howardalex 
I also have a smart tractor. I use a ikeda it407 and i always have to twist the cartridge in the headshell. I don't see how it would be possible to ever use an spu in fixed headshell with it. I see photos of this all the time though. Looking at it starting on the first tract of an lp using the ikeda headshell it’s obviously off. Headshell looks to long if cartridge is mounted straight. I have it at the recommended 295mm.  @chakster  Do you know if the geometry is the same for ikeda it407 and fr66?
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