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Headshell Hygiene and SME Standard Stupidity

I recently mounted a re-tipped Soundsmith SMMC1 on one of my better headshells. My initial reaction was ugh - something is really wrong with this cart, no bass, no magic, no interest. I checked all my settings and geometry and it was spot-on so I resigned myself to letting it break-in a bit and see if everything righted itself. Two days later and no miracle occurred. So I was going to call Peter Ledermann for help.

Then I gave the underside of the headshell a good look and saw the wires were crossed and touching. These leads are not sleeved but have some kind of micro-coating?! Once I combed them straight as possible a re-play was ear-opening. Everything I wanted and expected was there to hear and I could breathe easy with a fine sounding cartridge.

A quick look through the other five carts I have mounted revealed some suspicious hook-ups there as well. Before and after listens revealed easy improvements were made although none as drastic.

I asked myself, why is it so easy to mess this up and so difficult to make it perfect?? The answer is that the SME Standard is backward! For five of six carts the left and right channels were reversed from the pins on the headshell. So, the left channel leads had to cross over the right channel leads to reach the correct pins, based purely on color match. WTF!

I now plan on reversing the channel connections on all my headshells (exchanging blue and green, red and white) so that there will be no crossing needed. I will also reverse the connectors to my phono-pre to maintain channel correctness. Opinions please.
aigenga
aigenga OP
131 posts
 
I wrote this with a tad more anger than I would like and it is not possible to change it now, for this I apologize.

To address the replies. These are 'coated wires' in fact they are painted the appropriate colors. And, I am about to try some clear nail polish to buttress the coating (if it can take the strain). But headshell wires like no others I am aware of in a system are bunched together in a very small space where they often are bent at angles approaching 180 degrees. They are also moved after they are attached as adjustments to geometry are made.

My point is that the SME standard exists, and it behooves cartridge makers to follow it. I know that many if not most audiophile tone arms do not use headshells and are unaffected by the arrangement of the cartridge pins. But it is a problem for anyone who does use a headshell which is the vast majority of the market.

My other point is that it is very important to practice good headshell hygiene.
dougdeacon
3,338 posts
 
Hmmm... 5 of your 6 cartridges have their pins opposite to those on the headshell? Based on this admittedly small sample it seems there is indeed a standard... and SME failed to adhere to it. ;-)
albertporter's avatar
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albertporter
4,949 posts
 
I asked myself, why is it so easy to mess this up and so difficult to make it perfect?? The answer is that the SME Standard is backward! For five of six carts the left and right channels were reversed from the pins on the headshell.

I have the SME 312S and the color code indicates the wire go in same order (top to bottom and side to side) as the Air Tight PC-1, Air Tight Supreme, all model Koetsu, Lyra Atlas and other popular high quality cartridges.

The Yamamoto and Orsonic headshells that work in my Micro Seiki MAX are same wire diagram as the SME. My recently sold Audiocraft AC4400 was also the same configuration.

The brands I list are very well established, it's hard to imagine they are 100% wrong.
aigenga OP
131 posts
 
One of the weaknesses of headshells is that they connect electrically to the tone arm at tiny points rather than the relatively large surface of the sleeved pins on the cartridge. I put a very small dab of silver connection cream on the tip of each headshell electrical point to increase the surface and therefore the efffectiveness of the connection. An easy tweak that works.
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