1st Moving Coil Cartridge, FR-1 MK3 and Need Some Advice

Goldring Eroica uses aluminum cantilever. I heard my LX Saturday night for the first time after reattaching the cantilever. This thing is up there with some of the best I've heard--and that's with the extra mass of the repair. The FGII tip doesn't hurt, but this thing is clean, clear, fast, musical, balanced, controlled--just all around highest marks--with no harshness at all. I might prefer it to my Ortofon Quintet Black, even, even if the Black goes a little higher and a little lower through the FR.

Interesting.... Getting an FGS tip on the FR-1 Mk3F will cost me about the same as a new Goldring Eroica LX.... Which path would you take?
 
The Eroica was very well reviewed in the UK audio mags when released. As with all UK products and UK mags, I suspected nationalistic bias, but I still wanted one. And it was relatively cheap, in UK at least, with no shipping or tariffs.
 
I'm a big fan of the FR1Mk3F. So are you. I don't know the Eroica, neither do you. To buy an Eroica, and leave your FR broken, is taking a big risk on the unknown. (You've presented it as an either-or; if you can afford both, it's a different calculus.)

And all we're talking about is a "tip profile". The Gyger is fancier than the FR's line-contact, but it's the same principle — is the Gyger that much better? I already have the Gyger tip, and it's brand new — on a NOS Ortofon MC30 Super — and it sounds like crap, dead, dull and lifeless. Can't be the tip, though, must be the cartridge, because the tip sounds great on a different cart, N'Stein's Eroica.

As Mr Pig wrote so wisely in #101:

"Perhaps one issue that is not being addressed is the hierarchy of elements within a cartridge. Not every aspect of the design is going to contribute equally to the end sound. Also certain factors are going to create a hard ceiling, and improving other aspects such as diamond or cantilever may have minimal or reduced contributions to improved sound. So many of these aspects are unknown to the general hobbyist, as cartridge manufacturing tends to be a bit of a black art. What is more important, coil winding architecture, magnet materials, magnetic gap, application of damping materials, suspension materials and architecture, chassis resonances, coil wire characteristics, and so on and so forth. And which element creates a hard ceiling for what level of performance that can be attained? We really only can change one or two things about the cartridges we own during the retip process."

If you're very intrigued by the Gyger, retip the FR with one. You know what all those other design attributes deliver with the FR: amazing sound in every respect. The Gyger certainly won't ruin it, probably enhance it. I'm lucky, I have a couple spare NOS FR1's warming the bench, and two more in play on TTs, still going strong. So I don't see myself retipping any of them — but if I did, I'd be sorely tempted to try the most advanced stylus geometry available. Benefits over the very good original line-contact might obey the law of diminishing returns and merely sound amazing — but they might produce utter magic.
 
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Don’t mean to quibble and your points are all well taken, but the OM30 Super is a nude Fine Line.
Because I see you as nearly infallible ("nearly" because only the Pope is totally infallible), I really thought I must have screwed up.

But no, I wrote "MC30 Super", not OM30. The MC has the FG1.
 
Ok, I've sent my Fidelity Research FR-1 Mk3F in to Garrott Bros for a new aluminium cantilever and FGS tip, also the Klipsch MCZ-7 (rumoured to the same as the Linn Troika internally, made by Supex) for a boron cantilever + FGS tip. I'll let you know how it goes.

As much as I love my Philips GP922 (boron cantilever + FGS), it does need a little more oomph. It's frequency response is totally flat and incredibly transparent which was fantastic with my Cinemag SUT + Sheer Audio MM-88 (Marantz 7 based circuit) though vocals aren't as prominent through my new Valab LCR-1 phono. With some luck the Fidelity Research FR-1 Mk3F or Klipsch will do the trick.... Otherwise I might need to give an Audio Technica ART9 a try and sell some other carts to pay for it.
 
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