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Cart update: old TT, new electronics

I've just significantly upgraded my system, but comparisons over the last year with my modded Thorens TD115 + Ortofon VMS20eMkII have shown it better than a Music Hall MMF7 or Planar25. I've had the TT and cart for 22 years and they make a great match: high compliance cart + low-mass tonearm. Replacement styli every few years. The TT has 10lbs inert clay in the base, a nice mat and clamp, good interconnects. I also have a 2nd TP-30 tonearm wand, and can easily drill through the top as needed for carts that can only accept screws from above (ie Grado woods).

But the signal chain is now a BelCanto Phono 1 (40, 54, 60dB gain), Sonic Frontiers Line1, McCormack DNA0.5 revB and recent Thiel 2.3, with good AQ ic/cabling. The Thiels have shown up the age of my cart. I'm doing a crash course in current carts that will be truly the next level beyond the Ortofon that has been so musically satisfying over the years. Even though the Thorens isn't the final word in modern TT design, I feel it's fine for allowing a new cart to perform well.

> reasonably high compliance, low weight, light tracking for the low-mass tonearm
> definitely NOT bright or forward because of my Thiels and preferences
> reasonably forgiving setup - tonearm has no VTA, all adjustments in headshell
> nothing too tweaky, hard-to-find or esoteric
> <<$1K used
> all the great sound qualities of modern carts incl solid articulate bass, rich mids, airy highs
> prefer not to have a very low output MC, the above criteria seem not to favor them anyway
> wide range of musical taste, but more rock-based than chamber music or new age

Candidates:
> Grado Reference, high or low output. What's not to like? Compliant, light, detailed, not bright, well-received.
> Benz Glider H2. Too bright? Too little compliance for arm? Too inexpensive? Better Benzes?
> Clearaudio Virtuoso. Not too much info but good company and great reviews, too heavy @ 10g.
> Ortofon Kontrapunkt a/b: too heavy, too bright, too bad.
> Van den Hul Frog: good luck finding one used.
> Shure V15 latest incarnation. Any better than my Ortofon??

Any and all useful input appreciated!

-Scott
sdecker

Showing 3 responses by sdecker

sdecker's avatar
sdecker OP
143 posts
 
Some more information. I just spoke with John Campas at Grado who said their carts are designed for tonearms with 10-15 grams of effective mass - my Thorens is 7.5g. He said all I have to do is put 3-5g of playdoh or putty in the headshell to get it in range. That sounded questionable as wouldn't a heavier cartridge accomplish the same thing??

Even so, Grados are quite a bit more compliant than nearly all MCs due to being a MM design, so this may be my best bet. A V15 may be the most trackable/compliant but I doubt the sound would be anywhere near a Grado Reference league.

So I guess my question becomes "are there any other high compliance MMs out there that sound truly Great?". Or: "My tonearm might not bring out 100% of a good $1K cartridge, but if I pay just some attention to compliance will it sound significantly better than my Ortofon?" 1700 mentions Clearaudio and Goldring I'll look into.

Basement, your take on my situation is on-the-mark: but it would be a whole lot easier to get a used Rega25 than to change my tonearm on the integrated Thorens, thus giving me modern materials and a proper arm and cart selection, losing me the semi-auto operation nobody seems to deem worthwhile anymore, for the extra $5 it would cost.

Finally, Bob_b et al, is there any reason to go with the 5mV Grado vs the 0.5mV Grado if I have a clean 60dB gain available? Dynamics, increased RF pickup, adj loading for a MC stage applied to a supposedly load-insensitive MM, resale value?? So many options, so little money...

Thanks for all your inputs.
sdecker's avatar
sdecker OP
143 posts
 
Final update: bought the Grado reference.

Got it here for $495, the 5mv version. Figured if it works well I could always sell it for the 0.5mV later. Using the Thorens alignment template on my 2nd tonearm wand, was able to get VTA, azimuth, zenith and overhang all near-perfect on 1st try. Increnmental sonic improvements across the board yield overall better sound, though maybe not as much as I'd expect over a 22yo cart I paid $55 new for: HF detail, soundstaging and air, richer mids, everything more 'delicately' rendered. No doubt the arm/tt are keeping the cart from sounding its very best, but it's as good as it can be until/if I implement the 'strange tonearm tweak' thread on this forum.

The one thing I do notice that seems at odds with expectations is 1) lower bass response ( 10X the surface infrasonics vs the Ortofon esp on the outer edge of the LP, causing startling amounts of woofer pump and my watt meters showing a lot of wasted power. If #1 is due to the light tonearm moving laterally with in-phase recorded bass info with a less-compliant cart, then shouldn't #2 also be reduced for the same reason, despite it being out-of-phase vertical motion? Or does the Grado just have more vertical mechanical output below the audioband?

This is LP surface infrasonics, not airborne or structural, as proven by full gain with the stylus on a stationary record shows no feedback or excitation even jumping on the floor. And a function of LP ripples, seemingly not the resonance falling far outside the 8-12Hz range, just a much higher amplitude there. VTF 1.5 vs 1.8g no diff. VTA set just the slightest negative. And my tonearm mass isn't that far out of Grado spec. The tonearm is a 2-tube composite designed to cancel standing waves and resonances. I have an outboard processor with an infrasonic filter that cleans this all up, but I'm still curious why I lose audio bass and gain infrasonics... Bob_B, how much woofer pump do you get?

Thanks to all for your past advice.
sdecker's avatar
sdecker OP
143 posts
 
Arm mass confirmed.

(A line got cut from my previous post: #1 was reduced audio bass output vs my old cart, #2 was increased infrasonics)

Thanks to basement's suggestions. I didn't have quite the materials on-hand last night for a more elegant solution (next week), so I cut a pencil to the length of my tonearm from headshell to near-pivot (4"?), added a screw for more ballast at the front, measured it out to be about 6g, and electrical taped it atop the tonearm. This raises my arm mass from 7.5g to around 14g, and it's along the length of the arm vs concentrated in one place. The arm itself is sealed and way too narrow to put anything inside of it (think black widow).

The good news is the low-end is transformed. From the lower mids down, a newfound output, weight, detail, focus, image stability. And below say 100Hz, all the way to the lowest fundamentals I could find on my bass-heavy records, it was like adding a subwoofer. Very satisfying and confirmation of the whole compliance/mass matching. It also subjectively changes the whole balance of the cart, now sounding less bright and lightweight as the lower half is now in balance.

The bad news is it didn't improve the huge infrasonics I'm getting from the setup, perhaps made it a bit worse. The massier tonearm limits the cart's lateral motion so more in-phase audio bass is reproduced electrically rather than mechanical movement. But for out-of-phase vertical LP ripples, seems the added mass has the same effect, forcing sub-audioband bass into electrical output rather than tonearm movement. I guess it must be Grado's mechanical frequency response extending to near-DC? I don't know why all phono preamps don't have at least a token sub-20Hz filter...
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