In my opinion, and this is what i heard from others, an old record are worn by very simple styli (conical/spherical) with high tracking force up to 4g. Now these records can be played with Shibata or MicroRidge profile and since groove contact area is wider for such profiles the stylus pick up information from previously untouched part of the groove walls. Simple stylus profiles missing a lot of information because of the conical/spherical contact area (very thin compared to MicroRidge, LineContact etc). When you play it again with Conical/Spherical you can only do harm to the exact same part of groove walls. But when you;re using LineContact type (or Ridge) you're using untouched part of the grooves. If the records are cleaned then you can improve playback with advanced profile, seems like you already have it. What you think ?
Best cartridge for very old worn vinyl
Fellow vinyl junkies,
I have a weakness for old vinyl (particularly early oval Argo choral recordings circa 1958-1969).
Almost invariably these suffer from worn grooves, the effects of god knows what misaligned agricultural arms/cartridges over several decades, even the ones marked “near mint” by professional sellers.
I have a range of cartridges, including Decca London Reference, Koetsus, SPUs and Shure V15 111.
These go in an FR66 arm. Not all of these are necessarily ideal for this job...:)
What do you guys reckon is the best cartridge for these types of records?
Key requirements are not to be flustered by the challenges these ancient slabs of vinyl hold while doing the best job of producing something resembling music ?
Cheers !
I have a weakness for old vinyl (particularly early oval Argo choral recordings circa 1958-1969).
Almost invariably these suffer from worn grooves, the effects of god knows what misaligned agricultural arms/cartridges over several decades, even the ones marked “near mint” by professional sellers.
I have a range of cartridges, including Decca London Reference, Koetsus, SPUs and Shure V15 111.
These go in an FR66 arm. Not all of these are necessarily ideal for this job...:)
What do you guys reckon is the best cartridge for these types of records?
Key requirements are not to be flustered by the challenges these ancient slabs of vinyl hold while doing the best job of producing something resembling music ?
Cheers !
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- 57 posts total
I think you should look at some of the EMT cartridges with spherical styli. They have both stereo and mono models https://www.emt-tontechnik.ch/cartridges |
- 57 posts total