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 !
128x128howardalex
In a completely non-scientific and quite possibly unfair way I had a quick run through some of my cartridges using a prime example of good but worn early 60s Argo vinyl.
Best sounding is Koetsu Jade d/c. I use a smidgeon under 2.0 gm, mounted in Arche headshell with FR66. Basically this combo shrugged off any age related vinyl issues and sounded amazing with the very well engineered early recordings - from an era when Decca engineers knew exactly how to mike a live venue like a chapel choir and the records weren’t made by bean counting accountants and management consultants.
Next best was a collection of Fidelity Research 7s (FR7fc, FR7fz and an FR7f “PW1”). All of these also shrugged off the age and were all excellent - the Koetsu just being a step up in overall dynamism and sheer “reality”. With the Koetsu the image depth and sense of being at the venue were bonkers.
Least impressively were SPU classic (elyptical stylus) and Synergy . The Synergy was better than the Classic on these old records. I mentioned the test being unfair and it needs to be borne in mind that while the Koetsu is properly aligned in my system, none of the FRs or SPUs are - I can’t adjust overhang or azimuth in their integrated headshell and haven’t a clue how to adjust the FR66 in my Brinkman Balance tt. As a consequence all of the FRs and SPU’s are sitting outside of the ideal point on my Brinkmanm alignment gauge (just short of it).
But there’s my findings :)
I haven’t tried my London Reference or Shure V15 111 yet ...

@howardalex, I'm not familiar with Brinkmann TT, but if you have observed the P2S distance of the FR-66 according to FR's specs, than FR7's and SPU's should be correctly aligned. I have installed the FR-64S according to their spec (230mm) and they all 'hit' the three null points of the Stevensen alignment on the Feickert protector.

I'm aware some people use a different S2P distance on the FR64/66 to enable Berwald alignment, but if you do that all the integrated headshell types - their own FR7 as well as SPU's - will not be correctly positioned.

Your test seems to confirm the observation above that advanced stylus profiles are usually better suited to suppress surface noise on older records. The exception seems to be the FR-7fc, which has a conical stylus. In my experience this is usually the worst sounding profile, but perhaps Ikeda did something unusual with it.....



That's a pretty dreamy vinyl rig. I suspect you do have a clue how to adjust it ;)
Is the fr66s on a b60 mount?
The best version of a late 50s to early 60s Argo LP I will ever hear was a week or two ago when we went to the Kennedy Center Concert Hall to hear Ahmad Jamal perform on or near to his 88th birthday.  He was phenomenal; indeed, he is a phenomenon of age-defying virtuosity.  He even played Poinsienna [sp?] in a completely novel way.
@edgewear, thanks: the FR66 was installed in my Brinkman by the dealer, so I don’t know what P2S distance it has. Most definitely though all of the FR7s and SPUs don’t quite reach the single “bullseye” point on the Brinkman alignment protractor.
Without wishing to turn this into a huge technical debate or bringing Audiogon to the brink of nuclear war, if the distance is not correct and the stylus tip is slightly short of said point what sonic effects will that have in broad terms ?
I guess it ought to be capable of adjustment , but the Brinkman has a bespoke arm pod and it’s all pretty solid looking !