I have always been convinced that the strongest reason to use only Moving Magnet cartridges was the possibility to replace the stylus. It is really a convenient thing, especially if you decide to upgrade your cartridge when the needle stone has worn out; many producers allow to install a higher spec stylus as replacement, so you can improve your cartridge’s performance with time. But sometimes even MMs can benefit from a retipping instead of buying a replacement. Why? Well, maybe the available replacements are not as good as the original stylus used to be. Sometimes the replacements are no longer available. Therefore, as Moving Coil cartridge users know well, you can turn to a capable stylus retipping and repair service to keep you cartridge alive, virtually forever.
High Fidelity
Solved: not Shure anymore? New shades of Grado? No – I’m back to Gold!
Now I know what happened. Now that I am finally able to listen to a functioning Grado cart, I have understood. As soon as I started to be serious with vinyl records playback, I happened to buy a Grado cartridge. Then, many things happened and I had the chance to try out different cartridges, with different approaches to hifi music reproduction. I published some posts during this period attesting to my indecision about what I really liked to listen to. Now I have the clue to it: since a few days ago I just can’t stop spinning vinyl records. It was not happening since some time ago. And the reason why is clear to me now…
A Lighter Shade of Grado
The highly appreciated and sometimes controversial Grado Prestige series phono cartridges are known for their color names: they are labeled Black, Red, Green, Blue, Gold, etc., according to a selection process based on measured parameters and listening tests. I have always loved Grado products, the way they sound, the way they are made. I am impressed by how at Grado Labs they keep producing headphones and cartridges by hand in today’s world. But now I am undecided on what cartridge to choose for my turntable. Whenever I am undecided on what to do with some of my Hifi equipment, I find it useful to write down my ideas. Hopefully, this could be also useful to other Hifi enthusiast like me, still playing vinyl records today.
Even less Shure now…
A few months ago, I wrote a post about how I was no longer sure I still liked the Grado cartridges’ sound: I had found a Shure cartridge for free and with a cheap stylus mounted on, it sounded pretty good to me. Better than my old Grado 8MX? Well, a newly acquired friend sold me an Audiotechnica AT95e cartridge for an incredible price – I was blown away (yet there’s more to be said).
I’m not “Shure” anymore…
(situation updated more recently)
I’ve always been fond of Grado cartridges, because I simply like their sound and also the fact they’re hand made in Brooklyn in a way that seems quite anachronistic today. I will probably keep loving and admiring the Grado way of doing business, but after I stumbled upon a humble Shure cartridge someone was about to throw away, I am not “shure” I will be listening to my records only through Grados anymore…
For the Love of Gold
I have been thinking a lot about this. When I got myself back into analog audio, I recovered a Thorens TD-165 abandoned in a friend’s closet and equipped it with a Goldring Elan. When I first upgraded the cartridge I was advised to look in Grado’s catalogue.
I choose the top of the Prestige series, which in 2005 was the Gold. I developed a love for the brand, for how the Grado family works and feels about the business. I tried even something different but, for the love of Gold, I’m not “shure” I can go away from them…