I have 3–4 fairly good LOMC carts, all NOS and working fine. I like them BUT some have a nasty treble peak often associated with MCs (+6dB starting at around 6KHz and really bad by 10Khz). Luckily some of them are flat, but I can’t bear listening to the peaky ones, they’re like a dentist’s drill into my brain.
All are “vintage”, the newest I had was a Lyra Parnassus 20 years ago, also too peaky. It was new and I sold it because I knew wouldn’t use it and its resale value was high.
Loading them way down in my preamp helps the harsh highs but hurts everything else.
I read an old Hi-Fi News (UK mag) from the early ‘80s*, and it offered a “fix”. Putting a 1.5micro-farad cap in parallel flattens the peak. It says Fidelity Research did this by putting a tiny tantalum cap inside the cartridge. Obviously I can’t do that, so it will be an inline contraption — tonearm leads into RCA female inputs, to RCA male outputs, with the cap somewhere in between.
I’m a total amateur at even simple electronics. But if it works, I’ll have 3–4 “new” MCs I like, at no extra cost, for my golden years.
Question 1: How do I wire it? I may seem simple, but not to me. “Parallel” with what? What would it look like? A schematic won’t help, I may misread it. A simple sketch for a layman would help a lot.
Question 2: Should it plug into the SUT, or after the SUT into the preamp? After the SUT has a stronger signal: is that a factor?
I’ve probably left things out. Any guidance is welcome!
* Here’s the Hi-Fi News article cited above. A good read about some famous carts of yore...
https://www.vinylengine.com/turntab...5&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=
All are “vintage”, the newest I had was a Lyra Parnassus 20 years ago, also too peaky. It was new and I sold it because I knew wouldn’t use it and its resale value was high.
Loading them way down in my preamp helps the harsh highs but hurts everything else.
I read an old Hi-Fi News (UK mag) from the early ‘80s*, and it offered a “fix”. Putting a 1.5micro-farad cap in parallel flattens the peak. It says Fidelity Research did this by putting a tiny tantalum cap inside the cartridge. Obviously I can’t do that, so it will be an inline contraption — tonearm leads into RCA female inputs, to RCA male outputs, with the cap somewhere in between.
I’m a total amateur at even simple electronics. But if it works, I’ll have 3–4 “new” MCs I like, at no extra cost, for my golden years.
Question 1: How do I wire it? I may seem simple, but not to me. “Parallel” with what? What would it look like? A schematic won’t help, I may misread it. A simple sketch for a layman would help a lot.
Question 2: Should it plug into the SUT, or after the SUT into the preamp? After the SUT has a stronger signal: is that a factor?
I’ve probably left things out. Any guidance is welcome!
* Here’s the Hi-Fi News article cited above. A good read about some famous carts of yore...
https://www.vinylengine.com/turntab...5&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=