Yuour cartridge for Reed 3P "12 Cocobolo


Hello, my question is for Reed users:

- Which cartridge do you use with this tonearm in your system ?

- Which one perfectly match with Reed effective mass (18g) ?

- What is tonearm/cartridge resonanse in your system ?

Finally I got my new Reed 3p "12 cocobolo tonearm with effective mass 18g. Right now i use it with Audio Technica ART-2000 (limited edition) MC cartridge and LF tonearm/cartridge resonanse close to ideal (with my HiFi Test Records it's somewhere between 9-11Hz).

Audio-Technics ART2000 MC
9x10-6 (100 Hz,Japan)
line contact stylus
Weight 8g.
Tracking force 1.8g (recommended)

I'm gonna mount my next cartridge soon:

Argent MC500HS
8x10-6 um/nm (most likely at 10Hz, cos cartrige made for US market, but maybe it was made in Japan)
Weight 7g
Tracking force 2g (recommended)

In the future i would like to try few more cartridges, if anyone tried them on Reed please share your experience:

Miyajima Kansui MC
7x10-6 (100Hz,Japan)
Weight 10.4g
Tracking force 2.25g

Zyx Premium 4D with Silver Base MC
12x10-6 (100Hz,Japan) vertical
15x10-6 (100Hz,Japan) horizontal
Weight 7.9g
Tracking force 2g

Probably ZYX compliance is too high for Reed's 18g effective mass. Also i'm not sure is that correct to multiply 100Hz compliance on 1,5 or 1,75 to get 10Hz compliance ?
128x128chakster
I can only post my experience in my system that since early 2013 employs Reed 2A 12" Cocobolo partnered with Zyx 4D Gold (without silver base, 0,48 mv output).
The 2A Reed has 17 gr mass instead of 18 of your 3P model so this is not exactly the same; neverthless it seems that the matching works fine with no audible resonances.
best
Marco
Cheers Marco
Hmm, i always thought Silver Base is an improvement (not just additional weight). My previous model of ZYX was Airy-3 without silver base. My next model was 4D Premium with Silver Base 2 (i don't have it now, shipped for service to Japan).
Cheers Chakster
I asked myself sometimes if the Silverbase will be an improvement; also me in the past I used an Airy 3 so we made a similar journey in analog domain.
my actual turntable is a Feickert Blackbird.
since I'm curious... where exactly you send the cartridge to Japan for service? maybe in the future it will useful to know for me; here in Italy we have an expert for retipping but he don't make service to Zyxs...
best
Marco
Just noticed this thread. I have a 12" 3P in cocobola and use it with the Benz LP-s to great effect. The Benz weighs in at 16.5 gm as I recall with a compliance of 15. Strange combo. The Reed handles it fine.
Marco, it's stated everywhere that ZYX distributors and Nakatsuka-San support only models with real serial numbers (no support for grey market products like those from ebay in hong kong). If you have cartridges from official ZYX distributors they can take care of it (in case of retip/service questions). ZYX retip policy is interesting, they do not retip old cartridge, they will supply brand new cartridge with new serial number to customers (if you old original is broken). So the cartridge with broken tip must be returned to ZYX in Japan for replacement. It's not cheap, but you pay less for new one - this is what they call retip. If you have no distributor in Italy you can contact Mehran @ SoraSound in USA (he's a top guy in business).

If you preffer retipping old cartridge then Sound Smith can do that for reasonable price, no problem. But it will be no longer ZYX home sound! And if some other vendor has touched original zyx you will no longer get Nakatsuka-san support.

I've had some distortion problems in the right channel with new gray market Airy in the beggining, later the problem dissapeared, maybe it was just burn-in period.

Preamp is very important for cartridges like ZYX, it was a big improvement to use ZYX CPP-1 Pre-Pre (instead of my existing MC stage) and MM stage.