Goldmund Studio/T3 with Helikon cartridge

How are you determining your tracking force?

Aha!! A lot of folks don't know this but:

Shure tracking force gauges are made with stainless steel and cant't be used with MC cartridges! The large magnets in MC cartridges throw off the reading by a gram or more depending on the cartridge. (The magnets in MM cartridges are very small and do not affect the reading with the Shure gauge.)

Get a good digital gauge if your tonearm provides no method for determining the VTF.

Willster: Even if it weren't for the magnetically induced error of the Shure gauge, it doesn't provide the kind of accuracy I think you will want with your arm/cartridge if you want to achieve the best results. I have two recommendations:

There are many lower-priced digital guages, some here on Agon, sometimes at auction. I bought an Audio One Digital Stylus Pressure Gauge here at auction from "audioparts" for $157 about 3 months ago. It measures out to .01 gram (1/100) which is what you need for a MC cartridge. It's nothing fancy, but it does the job -- and for less than a tenth the price of my cartridge.

My other suggestion, and I wish I could be more specific, is that there are a few simple balance scales out there(like the Shure) made of non-ferrous materials. You'll have to do some Googling.

Make no mistake, the magnets in MC cartridges are extremely powerful for their size. The minute you revealed you were using a Shure gauge, I knew what the problem was. I've been there!

The Shure SFG has a one piece balance beam made of stainless steel, a sliding steel weight, and a plastic body. There are two engraved grooves at one end of the balance beam. The stylus is placed in one of these grooves depending on your measurment range. There is no aluminum top plate, nor is there aluminum elsewhere in its construction.

Michael Pettersen
Applications Engineering
Shure Inc
Response 03/17/2005 01:44 PM

Subject
RE: Shure SFG-2 stylus force gauge

Can the SFG-2 be used with moving coil cartridges, or only with
moving magnet cartridges?
* We can only speak for Shure cartridges - all are moving magnet and work well with the SFG-2.

It is my understanding that the magnets in moving coil cartridges are powerful enough to attract the stainless steel balance beam of the SFG-2 and produce incorrect readings.
* This is possible, though we have never tested them. Some phono cartridges use Mumetal for the cartridge body that acts as a magnetic shield.

* FYI- Stainless steel has very slight magnetic properties.