Wake up, Rip Van Winkle. Shure SFG costs about $40 these days. And they may claim to be made of aluminum because perhaps parts of it are made of aluminum, but the seesaw is weakly attracted to most low output moving magnet cartridges in my experience. This suggests that the seesaw has some low level ferrous content.Further, a problem with the SFG is not so much its accuracy as it is setting the sliding weight on the seesaw to the proper value on the printed scale. If you can set yours exactly so as to arrive at the proper counter force, more power to you. On mine, that drives me crazy. Why put up with that, when for similar dollars you can have a nice digital scale that is highly accurate? |
Similarly to what Nandric reports, about 70% of shoppers in Japanese shopping centers in Tokyo are Chinese, based on my observations. Ironically, they are primarily buying clothing made in China. I’ve asked several Chinese people about this phenomenon. Mostly they agree, shrug, and don’t say much. |
Following in to Mijo, I would say that after you’ve set VTA, then you set VTF with the weigh pan set at the level of the surface of an LP. That’s in the best case.
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Eking, I wouldn’t worry about a few thousandths of a gram. Ideally it shouldn’t matter where you make the measurements. But I wouldn’t blame your scale for the tiny deviation.
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Jeez, Chak. I’ve been using the DS3 for 2 years, still on its original AAA batteries. So indeed yours must have been defective.
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Chak, I just looked it up out of my own curiosity and because I could have bought either one last time I was in Tokyo. So there must have been a reason I chose the DS3.
DS3 sensitivity .01g
DS1 sensitivity 0.1g
DS3 more sensitive.
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If Chak says so, DS1 must be superior to DS3. 1.6g measured by the DS1 must sound better than 1.6g measured by my DS3. Mea culpa.
Mijo, most of the better digital scales come with one or more test weights included. I’ve never seen an error greater than .01g, which is within the expected error of the test weight itself.
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Harold, I don’t know what to tell you as regards your experience with the DS3. Your story sounds like a case of magnetic attraction between MC cartridge magnets and the weigh pan of the DS3. Ive tested mine for that problem, and it passes. Otherwise I can’t see how a scale could have a problem with an MC and no problem with an MM. I bought the DS3 after I discovered that my Ortofon MC2000 cartridge, which clearly has the most powerful magnet of any I own, was attracted both to my Shure SFG and to my generic Chinese-made but good quality digital scale. The DS3 shows no symptoms of that issue.
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Although I paid much more for my Ortofon DS 3, too blue, I am sure you are fine with the Riverstone. Good for you. I bought the Ortofon when I was in Tokyo last spring, and I felt I needed to buy “something” so I could say to myself I got a bargain.
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By the way, the Shure SFG is among those scales that are faintly magnetic. I own two of them and both misbehave with LOMC cartridges. |
The Shure SFG was for decades all we had available. In that regard, surely it is an audio classic. You may want to put it in some sort of Hall of Fame. That would be OK with me. However, now we have inexpensive digital stylus force gauges that are miles ahead in every conceivable way. The Riverstone is even cheaper than the Shure, so the Shure loses its one remaining virtue-low cost. Besides the Riverstone, there are a myriad of other good choices that also place the weigh pan roughly at the level of the surface of a typical LP, which IS important, IMO. Any decent digital scale is going to be more accurate than the Shure and provide much more repeatable results. One other thing to be aware of: some weigh pans on some of these scales are faintly magnetic. This property will not go well with a low output moving coil cartridge that has a very strong magnet structure. In this regard, I don’t know about the Riverstone. I use an Ortofon DS3.
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