MM choice

[muffinman]

i have £140 to spend on a new mm cart. should i opt for a Goldring 1042 for £134 or the Pickering XLZ-7500-S mk2 at £124. any views or experience would be appreciated. this is my first foray into mm. i currently have a denon 304 with a dino+ but wish to get an mm phono3.

[Ianm2]

well you can also get a step up device for phono 3, there are a few options

• peters transformers
• an mc transformer of ebay, the ortofon/sony t5 are ok, they can be bettered

but do the job, and are incredibly easy to use.

• a head amp which is mostly a transistor stepup stage, you may find a valve one but not really a good idea.
  can be as good as a tx, and transistors at this level operate all in class A, should be with simple circuits, too, important, as more complex kills the sound imo.

as a user of a 304, its great. I find the best loading is actually around 840 ohms, contrary to the leaflets advise

I have no xp of that pickering, but I do like pickerings, I am also a goldring 100* user and am delighted with it,

there is also a cheaper pickering for about £70 on ebay that also gives 2 spare styli that sounds quite good, if a little peaky at the top.

this one

270125895439

paste that into ebay search.

I have a feeling the posh pickering is very low output, you may need a step up anyway, and that company does one, and its not half bad.

and if you buy the posh pickering and don't like it, or decide to sell later, I will buy it off you, as i have always fancied one.

[muffinman]

cheers for the reply. i'm starting to hear a bit of top end distortion from my cart so considered the change. i have also been waiting for the phono3. if my cart had many years left in it then my decision would be far easier. as it is we are about to take on a few long reaching financial commitments which require me to make a rather snap decision as regards my choice of mm/mc. basically i dont think i could afford to get the £540 phono3 and then have to get a new mc cart. i was rather hoping that the combo of the new phono3 and a rather good mm would be a good swap and not a compromise. i had looked around on t'net and was of the opinion that the goldring is a very good cart. have i been mislead about the cheap mc versus £150-200 mm argument?

thanks for pointing out the output of the pickering. i could have missed that which would have hurt.

[Ianm2]

I wouldn't worry, some mm's are damn fine carts, just different, horses for courses, one man's meat, different strokes...all that, personal pref.

the mc ethos afai understand is largely to use minimal turns of wire, in order to shorten signal path, and compensate with powerful magnets, it also extends bandwidth, but i don't mind my signal going through a bit of copper, after all, look at an output transformer in a valve amp. mc's are one of those elevated status things, that they can charge a fortune for, and of course, sends reviewers into hysterics when they get to keep a £5k piece of kit, only way is to listen and decide for self, and that as yet I am undecided upon the benefits of.

otoh, if and if they are more difficult to make, and an expert tells me otherwise, then having a budget version of somehting expensive is invariably likely to be poorer than a very good mm

as an aside I personally prefer the 1042 to a music maker, just more fun and BIG.

you could always get a 103 ...a 103 and its dedicated transformer should set you back no more than £200, and that's back to brand new mc territory.

330126160019 ebay no.

http://www.audiocubes2.com/brand/Den...ng_Trance.html


but I think the 304 is better. I must hear the 103 again in something different to my long gone dreadful rega TT.

[Black Stuart]

Ian,
what do you mean peaky at the top, that's what I get from my unmodded (as yet) 63KI.

The XV-15 is marvellous. You can just fit and play or remove the little 'dust bug' and use a little Blutak - and just sit back and relax. I rate it easily over the Reson Mica and certainly over the 1042s.

I'm intrigued by this Pickering XLZ-7500-S mk2 (with all these numbers, it's smells a little like snake oil) I shall investigate.

But Ian's right MMs are not to be dismissed and many have wasted good money buying MCs - caveat emptor.

[A Stuart]

Then there is always the brand new Goldring 2000 series £70 to £185 (the £160 Goldring 2400 being reviewed) as described in this month's (July's) HiFi World (in the Vinyl World supplement). They also mention Ortofon 2M Blue in the same breath.
I only know what I read in the article.

Alastair

[Black Stuart]

A Stuart,
that's the problem, a bit like the lines from a Joni Mitchell song - he was playing so sweet and high but he'd never been on their tv, so they passed his music by.

The Pickering - £75 for a cartridge + 2 spare styli, that handles any kind of music with ease. There are certain tests that confirm or deny the quality of a product, one is the piano but the real acid test is the harp and I use a Nicanor Zabelata LP - if I can't hear that wonderful, truly euphonic sound of the harp, I know there is something wrong - it ai'nt with the Pickering, it expressed this beautifully.

[Ianm2]

hi Stuart, yes seems like the pickering isn't spiky in my current roksan unipivot arm, it did that in a hadcock.( I was also using a different phonostage, too, so its difficult to attribute the cause of that)

I did an a/b with the goldring, and I prefer that personally, its stonking good, i will be upset if the new ones aren't and then you can't get the older ones, but the pickering is damn fine esp. for the cash.

The pickering is very similar in character to the music maker 3, which is too neutral for my tastes, stunningly even, and superb bass, zilch surface noise, even less with the isolator, but I like the coloration of the goldring, if anyone's interested in a barely used mm3, I may sell. I do have too much capacitance, 470pf, making it less sparkly at the top as its quite fussy about that...its designed into 100pf pickup lead, and requires only 100pf loading on the phonostage, and tracks at 1.58g, that's absolute.

[Black Stuart]

Ian,
I think you've made a very good point there, it can't be stressed enough that it is so important to find that absolute tracking weight point for a particular cartridge, either side of that point will not be right.

Probably this is one of the reasons so many gave up on vinyl - you have to put yourself out. Also, arms are, with very few exceptions an awful lot better today than 30 years ago.

The Pickering is neutral in respect to the frequency spectrum an absolute plus, especially for a cartridge at it's ludicrously low price point but the one thing that I love is it's truly organic rich sound, that is so musical. I think that Boondi would agree with me on that.

I suspect that your phono stage may have something to do with that Ian - quien save?

[Ianm2]

agreed totally, vinyl isn't a brain dead solution, you have to understand the geometry of the arm if you are setting up, be mechanically adept, be able to work out resonances, and then get your cartridge setup right, along with the electrical/matching side, too. And earthing/noise, and constant maintenance...oiling. add to that space for records, proper isolation, and if you are running mc, you may need a head amp, and then a riaa stage, along with perhaps a motor with an external switch box for speed, powered by an external transformer, its a very messy thing really.... then into your amp.

add to that poss. a suspended sub chassis to tune, record cleaning and care, and its one very tall order indeed.

wow that'a bit of a crash course in vinyl problems, notwithstanding mangling your stylus

I gave up a while ago due to the hassle, and am a little tempted now, I keep getting tempted back to vinyl/valves tho', but I think the writings on the wall, has been for some time. vinyl is a bit too labour intensive atm, but I know what to do if I came back to it... new stock jap dd and simple to use rega arm

rebuilding/experimenting with older things doen'st become me anymore

I am prepared to accept an absoulte loss in sound for an easy solution, . and reliabilty, not really got the bandwidth for perfection anymore...its as much hassle having a triamped active system as fault finding valve amps wihtout equipment, long as you leave it alone its fine, but takes some thinking to implement and if you keep changing stuff around

but then if analog isn't optimal, i argue its inferior to cd, pressings and all that, too

I have/had a few phonostages to play with, always liked playing with transformers/low signal amps....a couple of broadcast ones, one in a preamp, and a graham slee, which despite grahams marketing and perfectionism, ( garrard, hadcock, len gregory and graham slee are about as good as its possible to get for mortals) I hear a few problems...bass ins't quite right but great insight, one of those things which can be too revealing, just about the best transistor phonostage I have heard. his step up is quiet as the grave, but harmonically bettered by a very good tx tho', but it helped me find the optimal load for the dl304, so its very useful in that regard

currently just running into the mm input of an integrated, suprisingly sounds ok

best thing about the pickering, too is the headshell, dead easy to fix in