"Grub screws", if that’s what you want to call them, might be made to work. I am thinking of threaded rods, essentially, with no head. You may be able to mate the cartridge to that headshell by using nuts from above, on the surface of the headshell, once you've screwed the rods into the threaded holes on the Hana. Problem is that when you tighten the nut, the threaded rod is going to have a tendency to spin in concert with the nut, so the headshell and cartridge never get tightly bonded. I recommend McMaster-Carr as a source of any exotic hardware, like M2.5 grub screws and M2.5 nuts. They’re amazingly fast responders and very reasonable in their cost structure.
Cartridge mounting woes
I purchased a new Hana ML cartridge, and intend to mount it on a "vintage" Empire 698 turntable. The 698 head shell is configured so that the cartridge used thereon must be bottom mounted. Before I ordered the cartridge, I checked with Musical Surroundings, and they indicated that while the Hana screw holes are through-threaded, the ML could be bottom mounted.
I picked up an assortment of M2.5 screws to mount the cartridge, and it turns out the screw heads are too wide to fit into the cartridge screw slots. My research indicates that this will continue to be a problem with other M2.5 screws out there on the market.
Have any of you folks encountered an issue like this? If so, how did you solve it? I've been thinking that maybe headless M2.5 screws (grub screws) would do the job. I'd surely appreciate any ideas that don't involve buying a new tonearm or turntable! Thanks in advance.
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@mijostyn Thanks for the excellent suggestion. The 698 headshell is made of plastic and is very brittle (bought it in 1977!); I’d be really concerned about fabricating it as you describe. Also, the 698 in original condition is probably worth a fair sum if I were to sell it to a collector. @lewm The 698 headshell has two captive nuts that receive the connecting screws. Your point is well taken, the nuts could twist during cartridge installation and break the headshell. Thanks for your observations and recommendation. Given the potential value of the turntable to a collector in stock condition, maybe the best option is to carefully install a new tone arm and put the original aside. |
If the through holes in your cartridge are threaded then you cannot use it with the Empire head shell. The reason is very simple - if you have the Empire shell with captured threaded nut that cannot be rotated and the cartridge is threaded it is not possible to get a tight fit unless you can rotate the cartridge - which you can't because you need two screws. You can only fit a cartridge with a non threaded through hole in that head shell - musical Surroundings should have known this - its basic mechanics 101.
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