AT440mla, ortofon 2m red, or JICO SAS tip for mx97

I am pretty sure my stylus is almost ran in... Been about 40 hours... I have officially ditched my audiosource eq 8 out of my signal path. I thought before that I needed it... And to a point I did... This stylus has raised the output of the cartridge to almost DOUBLE. No joke. The spectrum analyzer is now at the same level as my CD's whereas before it was about half. The pure audio button on my onkyo is engaged and no tone controls are needed... My recommendation, buy the stylus. No matter what table you own. Calibrate it correctly and your shure mx97e will reward you as never before. A side by side comparison of vinyl transcriptions tells ALL. I compared them with a buddy who has a project iii and a properly setup bluepoint no. 2 and i will say i actually prefer the sound of 3 out 4 identical pressings on my setup. He could not believe it. We compared transcriptions before and I was disappointed in my prior setup. His were so much more musical and open. Now he is actually entertaining the idea of the shure with the JICO. Happy Holiday and joyous listening and thanks for all the sound advice.

Ben

I'm so happy for you, Ben. (... told ya you would love it!)

Have a great holiday spinning records!

It is with mixed feelings that I announce that I am shelving my Fisher MT 6330... Okay it's not with mixed feelings... I confess... I am acquiring a late model Technics SL-1200 for a mere 200 bucks and am preparing to put it through a full on treatment of KAB upgrades. Well not entirely KAB... I plan on sourcing most of it from sound hi fi... Their power supply has lured me in.

Here are my plans:
I plan on rewiring the stock tone arm with the KAB cardas wiring the 1200 tonearm with cardas wiring sourced from KAB

I am fitting an archomat to the technics platter

I plan on doing a bearing upgrade to the soundhifi.com bearing

And adding sorbothane feet to the rig

I plan also on doing the soundhifi ps upgrade and strobe disable

I will keep my venerable m97xe SAS frankenstein. If money permits i may do a tonearm upgrade to either a jelco SA-750D or possibly an SME M2-9. I see no reason to discard my record weight as it is a fine custom piece. The wife gets the fisher with a re purposed grado blue.

Question is... KAB fluid damper on the stock arm? Or the SME piece? I plan on sticking with the cart i have now.. I know the stock arm has very easy VTA adjustment.

well the rig is setup... Audio bliss.. :D Now to get motivated on the table upgrades.