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Help I need a new cartridge and stylus

I have my late brother's turntable and I needed a new cartridge and needle for it. The one he had was an ortofon concorde 20.
The turntable is a Technics SL-1301 and the concorde sounded great when I tested it but it only worked out of one speaker (one set of wires in the cartridge were broken). I have Klipsch KLF 20 speakers and I like all types of music from classical to jazz to rock. I like a clear full sounding range and some bass but not this boom boom stuff.
I called around and everyone had something different to say about what to get, which was very confusing ; "Concorde is only for DJs", "Stanton is junk", etc.
A repair shop sold me a new head shell with a Stanton cartridge and Ortofon Super OM 20 stylus. I am not so impressed by the sound. It sounds a bit tinny and not so clear. Is this quality stuff I got? Also, could the old cartridge have been repaired?
I do not know a lot about audio equipmenet and you may be laughing at this equipment, but I do like good sounding music and the turntable means something more because my bro and I had a love of music in common and I want to use it in his memory. Any help/advice would be much appreciated.
libellule11384a
johnnantais
621 posts
 
The Shure V15MRx is very good, and probably unsurpassed at sounding good in just about anything (I'm making no judgments here). I own expensive moving-coils, a Decca and a Grado Woodie, and still the Shure is quite probably my favourite cartridge (I keep the others just in case and for variety, as I do like them all). The Shure's "cartridge stabilizer" brush also works, making it relatively insensitive to the tonearms it is mounted to. It can be had, apparently, for a very good price $200, from www.jacksmusicfactory.com. I think the answer to your prayers: it's also perhaps the best cartridge in the bass out there, so tinniness should not be a problem: it is accused of beign "warm".
listener57
730 posts
 
I continue to vote with Johnnantais on the subject of the Shure. It seems to maintain its accuracy, and tracking ability, and unflashy musicality, even when not paired with state of the art turntables, and tonearms.
If someone succeeds in getting it for $200, and confirms that such a bargain is for real, please post in this thread. Finding out about excellent deals is a wonderful benefit of getting input from many sources.
jrtrent
45 posts
 
The Concorde 20 was not a DJ model*; it used the same stylus that your current OM20 does. If you haven't had the new setup for very long, there may be additional cartridge break-in time needed (people commonly report improved sound, especially in terms of frequency balance, after 20-50 hours of play; nay-sayers call the phenomenon an owner-acclimation period). That said, I personally find the OM series brighter than I like in my system, and prefer the tonal balance I hear in models from Grado, Stanton, and Shure.

*There's nothing inherently wrong about using a DJ model in a home hi-fi system. For those who have rambunctious kids or pets, or who are fumble-fingered (or who have household members who are), a DJ model offers sturdy, reliable performance, and the slightly higher tracking forces may yield more stable tracking under conditions of less than ideal turntable placement/isolation and with running and leaping children or pets. The "concorde" style models available from either Ortofon or Stanton also free you from having to deal with alignment procedures.

Oh, and they can sound very good. I currently have an inexpensive Grado on my Linn, but also use a pair of Stanton 500's on a Stanton turntable--one for 78's and the other for lp's. I even used a 500AL on my Linn for a couple of years, getting good sound and reduced noise and distortion with the $0.25 bargain-bin records I had been picking up. One nice thing about your Technics is that, with a couple of extra headshells, you can easily interchange different cartridges to suit the needs of the moment.
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