Sonus Gold Blue High Freq roll off?

Hi all!

This has been a great thread for us Sonus fans/owners. I recently acquired a very good condition Sonus Blue Label cartridge and stylus from an Ebay auction for the unbelievable price of $22.50!:banana: I couldn't believe I was the high bidder and won this classic cartridge for such a low, low price! Sometimes you get lucky now and then.

I have it installed on one of my HK/Rabco wands/arms from my collection of tables (2-ST7's and 1-ST8's). I have 4-wands/arms and like to roll my cartridges once and a while between my office system and my main system. The cantilevers suspension seemed to be compliant, I have only used it now for maybe a 20-30 hour period and the initial impressions are very good. It has no problems tracking any of the albums I have played so far, and no signs of distortion or sibilance.

I read about soaking the suspension in 91% isopropal alcohol for a few hours and then letting it dry to rejuvenate the rubber and to straighten twisted cantilevers from the drying out (suspension collapse from hardening rubber). Mine looked like it was ok, but I decided to give it a try and see/hear if mine improves any from this technique. I'll be back to comment after it is done soaking and drying and leave my feedback.

Here are some pictures of the cartridge mounted on my HK/Rabco ST7 wand on my main table, and a few shots of the cartridge as I received it.
 

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That's extremely low for a Sonus, any Sonus. Keep us posted on its behavior and the results of the isopropanol soak experiment.
 
I need to try the isopropanol trick. I have a Black A with a permanent stiffy. Otherwise, it's fine.

John
 
Fun thread. I had a Blue for a while. The only cartridge of that era (IMO) that comes close to the original XLM.
 
Hi everyone!

It's been a day now since I "soaked" my Sonus Blue Label and at this time ...I am not sure I can hear a change. As I stated in my prior post, I did not have a hardened suspension that caused playback issues. It's still early from the soaking, maybe the bass out put is a tad deeper than before...I am impressed with the over all tonal balance of the cartridge. I am quite happy with the sound quality output. I just wish there was a aftermarket supplier for replacement styli for some of the Sonus models. NOS is really few and far between and getting more expensive.

I had a Sonus D5 on one of my tables, and rarely used it due to the above reasons. I did not want to wear it out and have to replace the stylus so I sold it off a few months back (with a slightly bent cantilever on Ebay that the new buyer was able to repair with dental tools and a high powered microscope). The D5 was the "Holy Grail" and this Blue Label model has a strong family tonal resemblance.

I am glad I have it, I know I will have to pay up some day to replace the stylus if I do or just bite the bullet and move on to something else.:music:
 
This might be a good time to note that the Dimension 5 had a younger (1982) brother, the Super Blue. Same specs.
sonus super blue-4_20487a.jpg
 
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Good to know. I have been watching Ebay and a seller recently offered a used D5 with a NOS back up stylus and some lucky person picked it up for $350. I wanted to jump in and bid but I am not in a position to blow mad money at everything I want. I am trying to live on a budget for once!
 
I am so glad I ran into this post. I have a blue/gold Sonus (NOS) and I had some issues with it when I first set it up and it just went back into the box. Now i have to take it out and see what the problem is. It was mounted to a Black Widow arm. I'll be back soon. :)
 
Thought I'd wake up this old thread to say that if you have an old Sonus with its original stylus, and the suspension rubber is still good, but the diamond is worn and you haven't saved up enough money for that rare NOS stylus or that $$ retip, there's one oddball strategy that might get you over the hump, and it's fun to do.

Get a NOS stylus (about $30 currently) for one of the beige ADC "Bricks"-- the 220XE's is fairly easy to find, but the 550XE's is slightly preferred. ADC called these styli the R-20XE (green dot) and R-50XE (orange dot).

You may ask yourself "Why a Beige Brick stylus? why not, say, an XLM stylus?" and the answer is the Bricks (and the now-rare original XLMs) had electrical body specs closest to that of the Sonus, so you'd have a fighting chance of getting a cantilever assembly 'voiced' or 'tuned' to the body's characteristics. This is, obviously, a geek concern. In real life, use whatever is available and work around any brightness problems that may arise.

Wet the stylus assembly with a little water or maybe some all-purpose spray cleaner. Gently push and/or pull the Sonus' cantilever out the back of the rubber suspension block-- just pull it straight out, gently, don't twist. There are no tie wires or adhesives holding it in.

Now reverse the procedure. Gently push the ADC stylus in from the front. If you push it in from behind, the whole brass tube that holds the suspension block may fall out the front, and since it's circular and there's no keyway, you'll have trouble getting it back in and oriented correctly! Don't ask how I know.

There's a fine gold wire that runs through the Sonus' block (I'm pretty sure it's a ground wire to drain off static charges), and if you can keep from pushing it out, that would be ideal.

Once the new cantilever pops into place, wiggle it around a bit to make sure it's seated.

That's it. You've done a Pritchard Transplant. And you can do this with any ADC XLM/VLM/QLM/K stylus and any of the standard-mount Sonus styli, since they're all made pretty much the same way.

If your Sonus stylus has a collapsed rubber suspension, you might have success with a method described in this thread.
 
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Let's take this thread all the way to Multipurpose Sonus Thread with a request from a fellow AKer who finds himself where we all do sooner or later in this post-turntable-apocalypse era: owner of an unknown cartridge, in this case a Sonus. Take a look and see if it matches anything in your photo archive or in your storage drawers:
John Barringer mystery Sonus Black 002a.jpg
I have things in my archive, like the SR-202 model, that are close but not exactly the same. Silver body, black magnet cover (on top) and black 'license plate' on the front, and yes, the license plate is supposed to tilt like that.
 
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Thank you for that interesting tip! Could you please expound on the parallels between ADC and Sonus stylii? What ADC would most be like the Gold Blue and function in a 202 holder?

I have a 202 with unknown miles and insufficient magnification to check it for wear. Sounds very good, though, even at its lowly place on the pole, quite nice detail.
 
cdk99 said:
...Could you please expound on the parallels between ADC and Sonus stylii? What ADC would most be like the Gold Blue and function in a 202 holder?
As you may know, the late Peter Pritchard founded ADC around 1960 after working for GE. He sold ADC to BSR in 1975, then founded Sonus in '76. From 1964 on, all his designs for ADC and Sonus were built on the same cantilever design, a thin-walled soft iron (aka permalloy) sleeve slipped over the back end of a short aluminum tube.

Since at least the late '60s, this sleeve has had four flats struck in it, and those flats fit into a contoured square hole in a rubber block held in a metal frame such that the cantilever was held in place without tie wires or glue, and was, theoretically, equally free to move in any direction (but not rotate-- don't want to play records with a diamond pointing anywhere but straight down). The drawing below is of the later Omni-Pivot refinement of the design, but it's essentially the same as the one in, say, the 1967 ADC 10E Mk II.. ..and also the Sonuses.
ADC omni-pivot suspension block.jpg
The later ADC styli, for example the ZLM, use cantilevers that are the closest masswise (as well as closest in diameter) to the Sonus Blue and Gold Blue styli. Using them doesn't make sense unless A) it was free and you don't have the appropriate ADC body and don't want to buy one and/or B) you just can't help yourself. Otherwise, simply play the stylus in the body it was designed for and don't look back.

If you have a working Sonus, I wouldn't risk the transplant unless again, you just can't help yourself, but you may want to get a copy of a popular LP with known hot sibilants recorded on it, ie, highly-modulated S sounds, preferably in one of the first tracks on the side. Those passages will show up a worn or incompatible stylus very quickly, and since testing styli this way is hard on records, you want to choose an LP you can easily and affordably replace.
 
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Thank you wualta. I'll try the sibilants thing. That English Beat record should do it.
 
Sonus followers and owners alike,

I recently won on eBay a couple of reportedly NOS stylus, a SILVER LABEL STYLUS P & SILVER LABEL STYLUS E. Both have been tested on my Sonus Gold/Blue cartridge body and play perfectly through my Sibilant test record from Peter Gabriel's So album with 1 gram tracking force, and thankfully the suspensions are compliant. Both have wire ties that can been seen by the naked eye from the back.

I think I got real lucky for $50 apiece because they are rare and usually have suspension failures from age and what not in storage over the years. Now I have some back ups for this body!:banana:
 
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We'll have to agree to disagree about the "wire ties", but I agree, you got very lucky, especially finding a P stylus for $50!
 
We'll have to agree to disagree about the "wire ties", but I agree, you got very lucky, especially finding a P stylus for $50!

Wualta,

Your right, the wire is not a tie, but a grounding path wire for static discharge.

I am tempted to try the stylus transplant you talked about in the thread, I do have a worn stylus candidate that came with one of the bodies I acquired.

Rick
 
Just be careful of the short circular brass tube that holds the rubber block-- on my experimental Sonus stylus assembly, it was all too easy to push it right out of its hole in the plastic stylus body.
 
Tried the Sonus on the Luxman PX-99, thinking that a light arm might help. Ran it at 2g since the range for brown stylus is 1.5 to 2.5. I think the larger low-end stylus is the issue. Mounted the DL-160 after it and the difference in detail and clean upper end was significant. Cymbals defined instead of being a rhythmic fizz.

I think the body might have been a Blue, it's cream colored, the stylus is dark brown. I'd still like to hear it with a finer stylus someday, but for now it's parked.
 
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