Goldmund Studio/T3 with Helikon cartridge

The Shure SFG has a one piece balance beam made of stainless steel, a sliding steel weight, and a plastic body. There are two engraved grooves at one end of the balance beam. The stylus is placed in one of these grooves depending on your measurment range. There is no aluminum top plate, nor is there aluminum elsewhere in its construction.

Dear Nsgarch: I don't want to disturb to you about, I only report what I test yesterday and today ( again ): leaving aside the test with the cartridges I test with a " rare earth " magnet, only two parts were attract by the magnet: the sliding steel weight and ( a little ) the below ( under ) plate, but the top plate where the stylus is placed, don't be attracted: at least I can't detected it.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Michael Pettersen
Applications Engineering
Shure Inc
Response 03/17/2005 01:44 PM

Subject
RE: Shure SFG-2 stylus force gauge

Can the SFG-2 be used with moving coil cartridges, or only with
moving magnet cartridges?
* We can only speak for Shure cartridges - all are moving magnet and work well with the SFG-2.

It is my understanding that the magnets in moving coil cartridges are powerful enough to attract the stainless steel balance beam of the SFG-2 and produce incorrect readings.
* This is possible, though we have never tested them. Some phono cartridges use Mumetal for the cartridge body that acts as a magnetic shield.

* FYI- Stainless steel has very slight magnetic properties.

My experience with the Shure SFG and Helikon is that the reading on the SFG was pretty darned close to what I expected, 1.75gm, when I set up my arm (SME 10) by following the manufacturers directions. The cart tracks wonderfully and sounds great.

The biggest problem that I found was that the SFG didn't have the resolution at 1.75gm that would allow me to draw any meaningful conclusions about the actuat VTF other than it was in the ballpark. The SFG certianly wasn't off by a drastic amount.

Could you have an arm/cart resonance issue?

Here's an update. I purchased a small digital scale recommended by an audiogoner and re-checked VTF. The digital scale reads slighly over 2.1 grams.

This takes us back to the original problem. Why am I having to track the Helikon at higher than recommended force to get proper tracking? My old cartridge had no such problem.