Audio Technica - The best in sound and affordability

[Mr Boochie]

Any tonearm with Peyronie's Disease such as this one.

You just know that someone will come along and say, "I've used that very same tonearm (dent and all) on ALL of my turntables! 100 million miles on the odometer and I've never looked back!"

 

[Old Guy8]

I've have Shures with after market stylii.
Grado Blue, Silver, Gold, ME+, Opus3.
Nagaoka MP200 at $350.
AT440MLB
ADC XLM with aftermarket stylii.

None of them suck, IMO, for me. The AT440MLB is too treble forward for me.

 

[theophile]

You just know that someone will come along and say, "I've used that very same tonearm (dent and all) on ALL of my turntables! 100 million miles on the odometer and I've never looked back!"

Kinky.

 

[flavio81]

The distortion is lower than most of the competition, crosstalk too and distortion is lower than competitors like Ortofon..

I don't really like Ortofon too much, but I don't understand what do you mean here, i mean, which two cartridges are you comparing.

And, distortion measurements (like the ones they do at ASR) tell us really very little, for many reasons:
- they will depend on the test record being used
- in vinyl playback, distortion depends on recorded level, which is the recorded level? is it a practical value that correlates with values used everyday?
- they are mostly 2nd order harmonic distortion, which the ear can't really hear until the level is really high

Crosstalk measurements are more useful, but they also depend on:
- the test record used
- the alignment
- more important, manufacturing tolerances. One can't conclude "Audio Tecnica AT-VM666ML is better than Ortofon 2M Grey in crosstalk" unless one can sample 10 or 20 identical cartridges.

All this is just simple science, the kind of science that ASR decides to overlook.

AT s the Toyota for vinyl playback.. Mercedes-Benz cost more and gives more prestige but is not as good wrt quality

As a die hard Mercedes fan, i take offense... But yeah, M-B is a shadow of its former self.

Re: the Pickering, loudness engaged is sort of a good characterization, but I like it and go the other way when compared with the SC35C. The Shure is competent enough, I guess. Sounds like it got good grades in school, graduated on time, and got a job right away being “professional.”

Well, the SC35C was labeled as a "professional" cartridge, so your assesment is perfect, i guess!

 

[flavio81]

This is true. Also, the correct combination of tonearm and cart in any price range will always perform better than a combo with mismatched specs.

Well, if the mismatching is too severe, yes. For example, warp-wow or cartridge-induced wow/flutter will appear, and this will sound horrible with piano music. Just to give an example.

The Ortofon Red sits on the verge of suckage, the Blue is a bit better but nothing to get excited about.

It is very interesting, back in the early 2000s the original OM was almost universally liked, even the OM10 which then was the equivalent of the 2M Red. And the predecessor, i.e the ortofons FF, VMS, etc, were also well liked. People raved about the OM20 and the OM30, not to mention the OM40.

I wonder what has Ortofon done to their old and well-regarded VMS motor system to end up with something that is almost universally disliked.

 

[flavio81]

(deleted by flavio81)

 

[JP]

All this is just simple science, the kind of science that ASR decides to overlook.

All discussed quite frequently, in fact.

 

[Apreggiator]

Kinky.

Kinky tonearms!

Deserves its own thread.

 

[Mr Boochie]

Kinky tonearms!

Deserves its own thread.

Dr. Friedman approves of this ad!

 

[PDQBob]

I was a bit surprised at how nice the Shure M92E sounded when I mounted it recently. For the money, it borders on excellent. Really good detail and fairly refined spatial imaging, for lack of a better term.

Glad to hear that. I was recently given an old M92E by a friend who frequents estate sales. The cantilever is horrifically bent so I'll need to get a new stylus.