Fidelity Research cartridges

Jonathan and others, this is off-topic but while we are in the mood for older Japanese carts...

Have you ever used/considered the micromini-voltage Micro Seiki MC carts like the LC-80W, which puts out something like 0.0mV? Was it any good?

T_Bone, I would easily be willing to pay up to the low 30's for a PMC3. At 40 I'd probably think about it, and buy it after all (grin).

The very low coil inductance of the FR-7 implies that loading can be fairly flexible, so I wouldn't be so concerned with the low impedance. Also, none of the FR-7s are overachievers in detail, and the top end extension is a little curtailed. so the downsides of transformer stepups won't be overly apparent. However, in consideration of the low coil inductance, should you choose a stepup transformer, I would look for a toroidal-core type.

I don't know the inductance data for the signal coils so cannot do any proper loading calculations, but I'd suggest keeping the loading capacitance as low as possible, and this includes the capacitance of the cable. 25kohm or 50kohm coupled with as little capacitance as possible sounds workable, especially if your Jadis preamp includes an RF attenuation network at the input.

I agree that the FR-66S would be somewhat better than the SAEC, but truth be told, I'm not overly enamoured of the "S" family either (and I say this as the long-time owner of a 64S with Elevation Base and Arm Stabilizer). The stainless steel is great to look at, but less great to listen to, and when I run mine I prefer to keep a compression wrap around the tube.

FWIW, I've known Isamu Ikeda for many years, and not once has he suggested that the FR-7 was any kind of successor to the FR-1. Even today he appears to remain proud of what he accomplished with the 7 (also the Ikeda 9), but the FR-1 hardly ever comes up in our discussions.

BTW, here is more eye-candy for the FR-7.

http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zh7y-tkyn/images/fr-7fc.jpg
Drawing of interior structure

http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zh7y-tkyn/FR-7B.htm
Drawing of cantilever with cubic core

http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zh7y-tkyn/images/FR-7_cat.pdf
One-page catalog

http://www.nippaweb.net/myroom/kt/

Here you can see just how huge the magnet structure is, and if you understand cartridge design, the uniqueness of the 7's innards will be very apparent. The magnet structure alone would spill over the body sides of any non-integrated headshell MC cartridge (at least that I am aware of), and underscores why FR never made a non-integrated headshell version of the 7.

From my perspective (that of an active cartridge designer), the closest thing to a non-integrated headshell version of the FR-7 was the PMC-3, but even this remained quite a way off.

I have a lot of experience with Micro Seiki turntables and tonearms, less with the MC cartridges. However, I did own the LC-80W, and I recal the output as being around 0.1mV, which at least was less aggravating than the JewelTone ribbon cartridges. I last used my LC-80 during the late 80s (probably amplified by something like a Yamaha HA-2), so I wouldn't know how it would do on a current SOTA phono stage. The cool feature of the LC-80 was that the stylus was user-replaceable, but the funky aspect was that Micro relied on the magnetic attraction of the polepieces (yokes) to the magnet as the clamping mechanism. How the polepieces are secured to the magnet is a critical area for performance and sound, and the situation on the LC-80 was made even more tricky because the polepieces also carried the cantilever, the mounting of which is likewise a critical area for performance and sound. I rather doubt if a performance-oriented cartridge designer would have opted for these design choices, and it is entirely possible that these are why the 3-ohm LC-80W produced so little output voltage (compared to other cartridges of similar impedance). Still, the thinking behind the design was very interesting (and brazen!).

Ah, managed to link to a defunct Yahoo auction. This link is via Google's cache, so probably won't last long.

http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:FeVEVjdz-osJ:page6.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/f75052193+%E3%83%9E%E3%82%A4%E3%82%AF%E3%83%AD%E7%B2%BE%E6%A9%9F%E3%80%80LC-80W&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=jp

regards, jonathan carr

Jonathan, Once again, thanks much for all the interesting information.
Good thing about the Micro (that it's interesting) - just took a flier on one tonight (10k) and landed it.

Dear Jcarr, even if the FR-7 series do have little in common in physical appearance with the FR-1 series, it nevertheless was initially named FR-1 MK7 in the very first commercial product sheet/brochure FR published about its new cartridge.
The actual samples which were brought on the market were however always named FR-7 (guess they simply "dropped" the "FR-1"-destination and made the "MK7" to "7" to document the new series and new design).

BTW - you might - if you haven't already done so... - give your Titan i a test in your FR-64s. The combo gives astonishing good results - despite the less great mass/compliance combination.

Cheers,

Dear T bone: +++++ " Have you ever used/considered the micromini-voltage Micro Seiki MC carts like the LC-80W, which puts out something like 0.0mV? " +++++

Like Jonathan I can't say how good is this cartridge with a today whole analog rig, I heard twice at dealer shop a have no opinion on its performance but about cartridges with really low output ( The LC-80 is almost normal for the next ones. ) the lower I know was the Jeweltone that JC posted with 0.04mv and next to it are the Audio Note IO Limited and the Ortofon MC 2000 with 0.05mv, these two are great peformers, I still have the MC 2000 that it is not only a challenge because its low output but it is too a high compliance MC cartridge!!

Btw, I already posted about the FR-1 and FR-7 but I confirm and agree with JC: I own and owned those FR cartridges the quality performance on the 7 against the FR-1s is totally different, the 7s are way way better and like I posted its prices are way different too.

Agree too with JC on the FR tonearm quality performance. No I don't want to start ( again ) nothing on this tonearm subject.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.