I had the Saec ceramic headshell back in the 80’s using it on a Saec 407/23 and 506/30. These were on my Micro Seiki RX-1500VG table. I tried the Saec ceramic headshell on several MC cartridges including Highphonic, Saec and others back in the day. I could never get a good sound with the ceramic headshell for some reason. Always seemed too bright and hard sounding. Always a bit too edgy.
I got out of vinyl for many years and just a few years ago got back into vinyl and man I’m so happy I did. Really loving it again! Now I have a Micro Seiki BL-99V with the Saec 407/TM and a Technics EPC-205C mkIV (compliance 12µm/nm). Bought a Jico SAS stylus for it and loving the sound! The 407 is a medium mass arm and likes low to medium compliance cartridges. I just picked up an old Stanton Epoch II HZ7S cartridge which is a low compliance cart. (compliance of 18µm/nm). Haven’t received it yet, but I hear they sound wonderful. Hoping it comes close to my Technic’s sound as I’m looking for a cartridge that I can slightly tweak sideways in the head shell a little bit to get better alignment whereas the techniques is an all in one headshell/cartridge. From what I’ve read a cartridge with a compliance below 20 would be best with the Saec 407 arms and probably no higher then 25µm/mn.
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Dear @harpo75 : The 205CMK4 is a superb quality level performer ( I owned. ) its compliance at 10hz ( not 100hz as japanese specified. ) is around 19cu that made it a border high compliance cartridge. In those times I owned around 20 tonearms ( mainly japanese ) 3 SAEC in between and were not good enough for the Technics top MM/MC cartridges even with out the beautiful made and way resonant ceramic headshell. Btw, Dr. Sa Win said in his operation manual, well in reality you can read as an Alert: please don't mount the cartridge in knife bearing tonearms and the SAEC is double knife. I owned the Sao Win LOMC cartridge, very good too but not in the SAEC. Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTOTIONS, R. |
@harpo75 : It's really weird SAEC tonearms ( at least the 407/506/8000 ) that were made with an exceptional quality building levels choosed knife bearing, unfortunated for say the least.
R. |
- 18 posts total