has anyone else tried Lloyd Walkers latest tweak

Don't laugh guys. LLoyd Walker is the real thing. Probably no snake oil here, just unconventional thinking that works. No, I haven't heard the thing and I bet it isn't cheap, but I'd be surprised if it didn't change the sound, and probably for the better. Once I wanted to add some weight to my tracking force without messing up the settings. Takes too long to get it back just right. So, I a placed a stainless steel nut on the cart with a speck of tape. Just like we had a quarter on the family's old Zenith console's arm as a kid. I found that the nut improved the sound even when tracking force was compensated for it. Probably if you put your Wife's diamond on the cart the sound would really improve!

The crystal is $325
The improvement priceless!
It is glued to either the headshell or cart body ( visit Walker audio web site for more info )

If in fact the crystal works by "reducing the EMI/RFI and static electrical noise at your cartridge and record while it is playing," as stated at Mr. Walker's website, a point that occurs to me is that it is likely to not be as effective with high output cartridges as with low output cartridges.

That is in part because in the case of low output moving coil cartridges the inductance of the cartridge and the capacitance of the cabling and phono stage input form a resonant peak at RF frequencies, which will greatly increase sensitivity to some of those frequencies. And it is also because the bandwidth of LOMCs generally extends to much higher frequencies than the bandwidth of high output cartridges.

The results can also be expected to be phono stage dependent, because the effects at audible frequencies that will result from RF frequencies that are input to the phono stage will vary greatly depending on the design of the particular phono stage. And also, for that matter, depending on the value of the load resistance that is being used.

Regards,
-- Al

Wow! only $325 for a quartz crystal that probably cost the better part of a dollar. Seems reasonable, but wait, why don't we just go to a mineral or gem shop/show and buy a bunch of different size crystals for peanuts and then try different ones and use the one that works best. It may be $300 of work or intellectual property to have it pre-sorted for us and Lloyd is a most enterprizing guy... I think I'll opt for DIY on this one. Thanks for the tips Almarg and Perditty.

Perditty, you should go for the pretty light green peridot crystal. :)

Yea it's the old joke about fixing the pentagon computer buy hitting it with a rubber hammer, for hitting it $2 for knowing where $9998