Universal headshell recommendations.....


I have been trying, with no luck, to purchase an Orsonics headshell. As an alternative, please suggest a good sounding after market headshell, Audio Technica, Micro Seiki, Sumiko. I have also seen that Ortofon has a new wood headshell available, which is a bit spendy, but looks promising. Any and all guidance is greatly appreciated.

Marty Kohn
Portland, OR
128x128viridian
Dear viridian: Perhaps the Orsonic headshell is inside the 3-4 worst headshells ever, resonant and non-damped one. If you like additional distortions then buy that Orsonic from chakster.

Audio Technica had very good headshells especially the vintage ones ( you always can find on ebay. ) that were builded from magnesium where some of them comes with a rubber top plate as a damper other that the magnesium damping characteristics. If I remember one of them is the MG-10 and MS-12 and the like.

Now, it does not matters which cartridge you own you have to have 2-3 different headshells with different build materials ( but a good self damped material. Not raw aluminum or steel. ) , different headshell weight and even different headshell shape and through a evaluation proccess decide in whixch headshell that cartridge performs with better quality. Here that evaluation proccess must be a proved proccess.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.
If you like additional distortions then buy that Orsonic from chakster.

Paying for headshell distortions comes for free, uhaha

If you want to follow Raul don't forget about 350 different sets of led wires to try :) 


Dear chakster: "  If you want to follow Raul don't forget about 350 different sets of led wires to try ... "

those led wires can do the difference inquality performance level in the overall frequency range. 
No, you don't need " 350 " sets but at least 3-4 different sets.

chakster, years ago  the Orsonic headshell motivated a dfriendly discussion trhough a thread and I remember that in those " old " times I already had first hand experiences to knew that that headshell is really a bad item to hold any cartridge.
Well, one Agoner send to me an email asking that for a wild I stopped to talk how worst the headshell was because he owned a pair  and wants to put on sale ( in Agon. ) because he falled down to the same conclusion: bad headshells. As I said, that was years ago and to me nothing changed about.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.
I'm not a seller, so that's fine, no problem, your comments always welcome Raul.

I think Orsonic quite popular among audiophiles anyway. Different strokes for different folks.

I just tried to help to Viridian (he said he couldn't find one).  

P.S. No more headache, no more headshells or led wires for me.

I'm happy to use Reed 3P tonearm with stock cryo wires from cartridge pins to phono stage. I can't change "the headshell" and it a great option, lol