Suggestions for Reference level vintage MM carts

[REXTON]

As the title suggets. I'm after suggestions for vintage MM cartridges. I'm aware of the usual Shure V sheries of cartridges but would like suggestions for the very best ADC / Pickering / Empire / ELAC etc. I'm going through a vintage MM cartridge fetish at the moment, it's a rebellion against all the MC's I own.

 

[Dogberry]

If you have a lot of time to spare, you might like to look at this Audiogon thread. The OP is somewhat polarising, and his English is unconventional, but he does seem to have spent an awful lot of time with classic MM cartridges.

 

[apropos]

Yeah, he is polarising. I went far down the vintage top MM rabbit hole some time ago, so hopefully this helps you.

Vintage top range MMs that I have tried and liked:

- ADC XLM mkII improved - midrange centric sound, soft sound lacking in ultimate detail, but a fun sound. Very high compliance which means low mass arm needed.
- Technics EPC-205C mk3 - worth tracking down for relatively little money. Excellent refined and well extended on top and bottom end. Slams like a MM should with 75% of a good MC resolution and air. Better than modern Nagaoka up to and including MP-500. Jico make an excellent MR + solid boron rod stylus replacement that gets you 75+% of the way there to an original retipped stylus. If you can track down an unmolested example with intact boron hollow pipe cantilever (not solid rod) that is not filled with crud from prior wet stylus cleaning and get it retipped to a MR stylus you have a nearly top of the line MM.
- Technics EPC-205C mk4 - very very hard to find in good condition, but even better than the mk3. Boron pipe is tapered to reduce tip mass further. Often have loose tie wire which causes an apparent suspension "collapse". Very difficult to fix the loose tieback wire but some good retippers can. Sounds like a Koetsu Black Goldline but with better slam and a more "fun" and "big" sound. You lose some of the top MC "air" but there is fine detail retained along with precise imaging (including depth) which is where MMs lose out typically to MC IMO.

Vintage MMs that I have tried and been meh about
- Victor X-1ii - the 2 examples of this that I tracked down had a certain hardness to the upper midrange which I did not care for, but otherwise sounded good... Do not confuse this with the inferior X-1iiE which had an interior elliptical stylus (non-E has a Shibata). The X-1ii has a beryllium cantilever which looks bent but is actually meant to look like that.
- ADC XLM mkII non improved - don't bother unless you like an unfocussed "vintage" sound.

I have always wanted to try the Grace F9/F10 but never got around to it before I got sidetracked by Koetsu. The F10 is nearly unobtainable IMO.

Hope this helps.

 

[Dogberry]

I wouldn't be me if I didn't throw in a plug for a Decca cartridge. High output, moving iron and tip-sensing. The older tin can Deccas are a bit wild and woolly, and have a reputation for hum and poor tracking, but offer an addictive alternative to MCs. The later models after John Wright took over are more refined and without problems, but they aren't cheap.

 

[Lynnot]

There is quite a lot of good vintage MI/ MM cartridges worthwile collecting an playing occasionally. But you need suitable tonearms and matching phonostages, allowing many load setttings up to 400µF and up to 100KΩ.

 

[Lynnot]

Here an example:


(Stanton 691SL)

 

[ErnstR]

What cart qualifies as "reference level", "vintage" and "MM" at the same time?
If you ordered a Neumann VMS-70 cutting lathe in 1975 (vintage) it came fitted by default with either Ortofon SPU / SL, Elac SSG-555 (MM) or Shure V15III (MM) for reference.
I live happily with all of them.

cheers Ralf

 

[DasguteOhr]

Yeah, he is polarising. I went far down the vintage top MM rabbit hole some time ago, so hopefully this helps you.

Vintage top range MMs that I have tried and liked:

- ADC XLM mkII improved - midrange centric sound, soft sound lacking in ultimate detail, but a fun sound. Very high compliance which means low mass arm needed.
- Technics EPC-205C mk3 - worth tracking down for relatively little money. Excellent refined and well extended on top and bottom end. Slams like a MM should with 75% of a good MC resolution and air. Better than modern Nagaoka up to and including MP-500. Jico make an excellent MR + solid boron rod stylus replacement that gets you 75+% of the way there to an original retipped stylus. If you can track down an unmolested example with intact boron hollow pipe cantilever (not solid rod) that is not filled with crud from prior wet stylus cleaning and get it retipped to a MR stylus you have a nearly top of the line MM.
- Technics EPC-205C mk4 - very very hard to find in good condition, but even better than the mk3. Boron pipe is tapered to reduce tip mass further. Often have loose tie wire which causes an apparent suspension "collapse". Very difficult to fix the loose tieback wire but some good retippers can. Sounds like a Koetsu Black Goldline but with better slam and a more "fun" and "big" sound. You lose some of the top MC "air" but there is fine detail retained along with precise imaging (including depth) which is where MMs lose out typically to MC IMO.

Vintage MMs that I have tried and been meh about
- Victor X-1ii - the 2 examples of this that I tracked down had a certain hardness to the upper midrange which I did not care for, but otherwise sounded good... Do not confuse this with the inferior X-1iiE which had an interior elliptical stylus (non-E has a Shibata). The X-1ii has a beryllium cantilever which looks bent but is actually meant to look like that.
- ADC XLM mkII non improved - don't bother unless you like an unfocussed "vintage" sound.

I have always wanted to try the Grace F9/F10 but never got around to it before I got sidetracked by Koetsu. The F10 is nearly unobtainable IMO.

Hope this helps.

F9L for me best compared to the F8 series, they have reduced needle mass dimensions to get more bandwidth to higher frequencies. open airy sound with wonderful midrange.
F 10 are moving coils. Types different cantilever

F-10C specifications:
Frequency characteristics: 20~30,000Hz±2dB
Output voltage: 0.5mV(5cm/sec, 1,000Hz, 45°)
Impedance: 15Ω±10%(1,000Hz)
Channel balance: within 0.5dB(1,000Hz)
Crosstalk: below -25dB(1,000Hz)
Stylus tip: 0.2×0.8mil Advanced Luminal Trace
Stylus pressure: 1.8gr (±0.3gr)
Compliance: 20×10-6cm/dyne
Cantilever: Superhard aluminum alloy-made tapered pipeline
Weight: 8.6gr
Price: ￥26,000

F-10L specifications:
Frequency characteristics: 20~30,000Hz±2dB
40~20,000Hz±1dB
Output voltage: 0.75mV(5cm/sec, 1,000Hz, 45°)
Impedance: 23Ω±10%(1,000Hz)
Channel balance: within 0.5dB(1,000Hz)
Crosstalk: below -25dB(1,000Hz)
Stylus tip: 0.2×0.8mil Advanced Luminal Trace
Stylus pressure: 1.8gr (±0.5gr)
Compliance: 20×10-6cm/dyne
Cantilever: Boron composite
Weight: 8.6gr
￥44,000

F-10P specifications:
Frequency characteristics: 20~25,000Hz±2dB
40~20,000Hz±1dB
Output voltage: 0.75mV(5cm/sec, 1,000Hz, 45°)
Impedance: 23Ω±10%(1,000Hz)
Channel balance: within 0.5dB(1,000Hz)
Crosstalk: below -25dB(1,000Hz)
Stylus tip: 0.2×0.8mil Advanced Luminal Trace
Stylus pressure: 2.5gr (±0.5gr)
Compliance: 13×10-6cm/dyne
Cantilever: Tapered OX titanium
Weight: 9.3gr

 

[Lynnot]

Those Grace cartridges are very good - so is this one:

 

[XV-1]

TECHNICS EPC-P100C-MK4. One of the best cartridges ever made.

 

[ErnstR]

Poor man's EPC-100, one of the second-best cartridges ever made:



regards Ralf

 

[Lynnot]

Not bad either:

 

[Lynnot]

And one of my favorite vintage MM cartridges:

 

[Lynnot]

If you want to try these vintage MMs then use the best MM phono stage you can afford. Preferably vacuum tube based.
As only the best phono stages will be able to reveal the quality of these vintage MM designs.

Best regards, Tony

 

[ErnstR]

Tony is absolutely right with his recommendation. Vacuum tube phono stages generally work better with MMs than your typical John Curl design.
The reason is simple: Most vacuum tube phono stages are optimized for high-resistance input like MMs or MCs through a step-up-transformer. So a high-resistance MM is their natural partner.
If you look at the transistor input stages of phono-amps 99% of them are build and optimized for low-resistance input like Moving-coils. High-resistance input is -if any- a mere afterthought. A simple Head-amp for Moving coils into a dedicated MM-input stage (70s topology) would give you lots of problems for MCs (noise).
Done right you have to build two different input-stages - one optimized for high-resistance input and one optimized for low-resistance input.
The Accuphase C47 phono-amp is a good example for this - it features two dedicated and totally different input stages for MC (9 parallel bipolar transistors) and MM (3 parallel FETs). Not the most cost-effective way to build a phono stage but the Japanese still like their Shure V15s...

cheers Ralf