Cartridge break-in: with or without tears?

I too just play records and let it break in slowly. Given that cartridges only last a thousand (or maybe two thousand hours, if you are lucky), I hate giving away 10% or so of my cartridge's life on break-in. I might as well listen and enjoy how much better I like it once it is broken in.

And yes, the Glider II has a little bit of an HF edge to it. (I still consider it to be a good cartridge, because except for that, it sounds really good, and has pretty good frequency extension. It does lack a really deep dark background though. I eventually went to the Koetsu line to tame that HF and to get the really black backgrounds I was looking for; and of course the Koetsu mid-range magic.)

How do you like your Loricraft BTW?
Does it really do that much better job than hand cleaning and then vacuuming the record clean?
I have considered getting one at some point. (I have a nitty gritty 1.0 that I got for basically nothing, and it works pretty well. However, I think I might want to jump up past the usual step up in RCMs (i.e. the VPI units), and get either the Loricraft or the Keith Monks machine.

Thanks to you all. I am feeling much reassured and won't ever make that particular mistake again.

TWL: The test record was toast from the moment I opened it and saw the label torn and spattered, waiting to snag any stylus that ventured too near. To my mind it thoroughly deserved its pulverization. So I can think of this as merely a detour on the way to the trashbin.

Dougdeacon: I'm not quite so far gone as actually to have spent those hours listening to the pink noise. (Though just a smidgen more infatuation and such a thing might begin to seem a rational and attractive use of time.) My patchy system no longer has actual speakers, only headphones (AKG-K1000s, far cheaper than comparably good speakers and more practical in my acoustically leaky apartment). I just stuck the earphones on my ears every once in a while to make sure nothing was going audibly wrong.

Cpdunn99: Possibly so. Not everything sounds gives that treble tizziness, however; and some records (like a set of Couperin trios on ASV Gaudeamus last night) are perfection. The P3 isn't especially friendly to VTA adjustments, but I've got a couple of spacers around and will experiment. Maybe my ideas of perfection need a little exercise.

Kurt_tank: The Glider was what my local audio dealer steered me to, I think because he had had experience with it and not with the other cartridges I had come in to ask him about. I felt a little hesitant about it, but this cartridge was necessarily going to be a compromise between something that would work with the P3 and its RB300 and might also be transferrable (I hope) to what I might get next--except that the more I read the less sure I am of what I ought to or even can get next, so the framework of this hypothetically reasonable compromise has fallen apart. Anyway, it's experience.

Given the state of the rest of my system, I really have no business owning a Loricraft at all. I love it but can't do a proper comparison with other machines, first because it's the only RCM I've used (I took a big jump up from an ancient DiscWasher and then a carbon fiber brush, both of which did a surprisingly good job of keeping my records pretty clean, considering) and second because the unit I got was used when I bought it. I've had some problems with the management of the thread--since more or less resolved, partly by the SmartDevices technicians, who gave the thread tube a good flossing and replaced the jar's hardware, and partly by my own experimentation with the speed of the vacuum head's movement over the surface of the record. But these problems I think I would not have experienced had I shelled out for a new machine. I got the Loricraft instead of a VPI for the same principal reason I use headphones rather than real speakers: a strong desire not to drive my neighbors crazy. But I'm not especially fond of the VPI's shrieking myself. And, maybe more than anything else, I just loved the splendid solidity and admirable ingenuity and general wellmadeness of the Loricraft--a primitive feeling of intense liking that that has me in its grip even yet.

Susan

had tried and had a number of carts mm, mc etc...
still don't know the differents between before and after break-in on any one of those i've had.
contrary, when the cartridge is worn i could hear instantly.
maybe i'm divin' onto music i listen too deep so there's no place in my gray substance to analyze how it's different after break-in or before.
i won't deny that the moving parts of every cartrige need to be setled for the best performance, but accelerating a break-in seems to me like flooring the accelerator in the brand-new car right out of the dealership(no wonder to me as i see some consumer report as "had replaced engine after 24k- miles" as an example of the break-in acceleration:-)).

Those popular low compliance cartridges (Shelter, Denon,...) can take a long time to break in. I broke in my new Denon for the first 30 hours with the looked grooves on cardas record as well, and like Doug I did change the groove fairly often. Leaving the Denon with its spherical stylus in the groove longer than an hour resulted in damage to the groove not the stylus. The damage to the groove was pretty audible since the pink noise was much lower in frequency with the higher frequencies being damped.

Also is helps to alternate between lateral and vertical modulation grooves. And unlike Marakanetz I heard a clear difference after the break in. The high got much smoother and the highs went from unlistenable to extended and smooth. But then the Glider might be not as difficult to break in as the Denon. Certainly I would start playing with the VTA after the cartridge has been running for 50 hours.

Good luck and enjoy.

Rene

Rene,
Your theory makes sense and my break-in experiences have been similar. A low compliance Shelter 901 took forever. It was virtually unlistenable (screechy) before 50-75 hours and I'm not sure it was fully broken in even at 150. It lived on that Cardas record for days.

OTOH, two mid-compliance ZYX Airy's were a joy to listen to right OOTB. It was easy enough to hear their suspensions loosening up for 25-50 hours, but neither was ever unpleasant. We didn't bother with the Cardas tracks for them. Like Twl and Kurt_Tank said, why not just enjoy the music?

Susan,
Regarding your somewhat "unbalanced" RCM/TT mix, at least you have a RCM for life! It's surely better for your vinyl to be played really clean on an entry level TT than to be played dirty on some fancy rig. Like you we admire the Loricraft's impressive BQ and its cleverly effective and efficient design. Nice job finding one used. That must be rare.

I don't remember if we've discussed it, but at the end of each sweep we move the arm off the back of the machine (so the nozzle is sucking air) and leave the vacuum pump on while performing the next step. IOW, the pump is pretty much running full time during cleaning sessions. IME this keeps the tube clear and stops the thread clogging up. We've never had a thread jam since we started doing this.

Kurt_tank,
If you can afford a Loricraft or Keith Monks, get one. I've played records cleaned with RRL fluids and modded shop vacs, NG's and VPI's. In nearly every case the noise level was unacceptable. In nearly every case a re-cleaning on the Loricraft did the trick. The only ebay seller I know whose vinyl is as clean as ours is Black*Pearls from Frankfurt Germany. He cleans every record on a Keith Monks. Vacuum wand/felt designs just don't compare.

If you want to hear for yourself before deciding, mail me a couple LP's and I'll clean them for you. No charge except return postage/insurance. Email me if that's of interest. (That's an open offer to anyone BTW.)