Mono Cartridge Question
You chaps have watched me struggle with the issue of my London Decca Reference being irreplaceable, and then joyfully learning that John Wright has a successor after all. You have seen me buy and test three other MI designs (Nagaoka MP-500, Grado Statement3, Soundsmith Sussurro MkII) along with my older MC cartridges (Ortofon Kontrapunkt C and Benz Micro Ruby 3). Since those struggles have led me to owning two SME turntables and four tonearms, I am now torturing myself with the question of whether one of those four should be home to a dedicated mono cartridge. Remember, I only have one ear and cannot hear stereo at the best of times. A mono cartridge for my few dozen mono recordings would be a matter of reduced surface noise and possibly some improvement in dynamics.
I can get hold of an Ortofon Cadenza Mono (two voice coils so not true mono) for about 1600CDN, and a Miyajima Zero for 3450CDN. So the question is this: am I mad to even think about it? Money is not what it once was before I retired. There is no opportunity to go and hear these before purchase, without spending much more than purchase price on travel.
Shall I "make do" with my rather good stereo carts for my mono LPs or is there something better waiting for me when I get out those Parlophone Beatles LPs?
@goofyfoot If I don’t hear back from the overly laid back guy at londondecca.com by the start of next week I shall be ordering an Ortofon Cadenza Mono, of which Ortofon write:
That should give me some vertical compliance and a more modern profile than a conical stylus. |
@dogberry Forgot about the Cadenza. I'm sure that's a good sounding cartridge. It would be interesting to hear your opinion after you get it up and running. |
I'm discovering more mono LPs all the time. I was lucky enough to inherit from a deceased surgical colleague a remarkably eclectic collection of several hundred LPs. No end of bizarre stuff, you know, nose flutes, Irish dance and suchlike. But half of it is early music and classics. Yesterday I cleaned a lot of mildew off a 1951 Furwangler/Bayreuth/Beethoven No.9 which sounded fantastic! Such treasures deserve a proper pickup, which is why I started this thread. |
@dogberry I have about two hundred mono LP’s myself. Folkways, Archive Productions, Mylodia, etc… and remasters. Some 1950’s vinyl I’ve bought still has shards of vinyl along the edges from when they were cut. There is a treasure trove of mono out there, I honestly believe I’ve barely scratched the surface in my record collecting endeavors. I’m looking for a local professional record cleaning service, given the age of many of the originals I’ve purchased. |
I think you have this backwards. If you trust Namiki/Orbray, the fine line/micro-ridge/Replicant type profile has the largest contact patch size and the elliptical the smallest with the conical coming in with a slightly larger contact area of the elliptical but still 1/2 that of a microridge.. dave
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