Mono Cartridge Question
You chaps have watched me struggle with the issue of my London Decca Reference being irreplaceable, and then joyfully learning that John Wright has a successor after all. You have seen me buy and test three other MI designs (Nagaoka MP-500, Grado Statement3, Soundsmith Sussurro MkII) along with my older MC cartridges (Ortofon Kontrapunkt C and Benz Micro Ruby 3). Since those struggles have led me to owning two SME turntables and four tonearms, I am now torturing myself with the question of whether one of those four should be home to a dedicated mono cartridge. Remember, I only have one ear and cannot hear stereo at the best of times. A mono cartridge for my few dozen mono recordings would be a matter of reduced surface noise and possibly some improvement in dynamics.
I can get hold of an Ortofon Cadenza Mono (two voice coils so not true mono) for about 1600CDN, and a Miyajima Zero for 3450CDN. So the question is this: am I mad to even think about it? Money is not what it once was before I retired. There is no opportunity to go and hear these before purchase, without spending much more than purchase price on travel.
Shall I "make do" with my rather good stereo carts for my mono LPs or is there something better waiting for me when I get out those Parlophone Beatles LPs?
Hi Lewm, Definitions can get tricky. What I do is clean it and then play the damn record. If not sure, I play the record with a stereo cartridge first. That is always going to determine if it is mono or stereo. Next, I try a 0.07 mil mono. If it is really noisy, then I try a 1.0 mil mono. Usually that process works. If none of those works, the record is donated to a local charity that sells used records. But that is very rare. |
My policy is if the performance is old enough to have been recorded in mono, and if neither the jacket nor the label proclaim it’s stereo, then I flip the mono switch. But that doesn’t answer my own question. However as a result I’m playing all mono LPs with modern stereo styli, and I don’t notice any problem related to groove width. It may be that I own very few mono LPs that are old enough to require 1.0mil. |
@intactaudio in your experience would you say modern profiles play mono better? |
