10seventy9
Active Member
The other day I was asking about a cart to make my turntable sound more open/bright, some of you might remember that.... well, I got the little scale in the mail today. I first off found out that either I didn't zero out my balance quite right when I first set up my table, or the numbers on my arm are off a little, but I was about 1/4 gram off of what the numbers actually said.
So, now that I know what my stylus actually weighs, I experimented a bit. I set it at 3 grams (Pioneer PL41 recommended to track at 2-3g) and had a listen to Supertramp's The Logical Song. Sounds "ok" but not what I remember this table sounding like when I was a kid/teenager. So, I back off 1/4 gram at a time until I hit 2 grams, and it's like the thing opened up and I have a completely different cartridge/stylus on it, HUGE, HUGE difference. Bigger, more open top and I think the bass sounds punchier, too. I am using a Shure/Radio Shack R47ED cart that I put an EVG/JICO N75EC stylus on at the recommendation of some folks here, so it's not a crap cart/stylus combo, but not exactly an exotic one either...
Long story short/TLDR... if you don't have one, buy yourself a small scale, it will make you very glad you did in short order. If anyone wants to know what scale I bought, feel free to PM me and I'll send you a link to it or I could post a link here, but I think that's not allowed if I remember right. I bought it off the auction site....
So, now that I know what my stylus actually weighs, I experimented a bit. I set it at 3 grams (Pioneer PL41 recommended to track at 2-3g) and had a listen to Supertramp's The Logical Song. Sounds "ok" but not what I remember this table sounding like when I was a kid/teenager. So, I back off 1/4 gram at a time until I hit 2 grams, and it's like the thing opened up and I have a completely different cartridge/stylus on it, HUGE, HUGE difference. Bigger, more open top and I think the bass sounds punchier, too. I am using a Shure/Radio Shack R47ED cart that I put an EVG/JICO N75EC stylus on at the recommendation of some folks here, so it's not a crap cart/stylus combo, but not exactly an exotic one either...
Long story short/TLDR... if you don't have one, buy yourself a small scale, it will make you very glad you did in short order. If anyone wants to know what scale I bought, feel free to PM me and I'll send you a link to it or I could post a link here, but I think that's not allowed if I remember right. I bought it off the auction site....