AudioNervosa
Systemic Development => Analog Devices => Topic started by: richidoo on December 26, 2015, 07:26:13 PM
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Some of my oldest records have groove damage from playing on ceramic cartridge record changers when I was a kid. But weirdly, the Columbia issues largely escaped this damage and still sound great, even on high end TT.
Did Columbia use a different formulation of vinyl that could withstand abuse better than standard vinyl used by other labels?
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quite often the wear on records of long ago is located at the very top of the grooves because the stylus tips of the day were much larger than we see today and therefore rode way up high. it is not unusual for a modern cartridge with today's very small profile diamond tips id able to ride much lower in the groove , to the point where it is actually playing vinyl that was never physically touched by those old ceramic carts.
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Exactly Tom. I found that records I thought were old and damaged sounded better once I went to a fin line stylus, like a Shibata tip. The level of quiet increased quite a bit.
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same as me. I play some vinyl that is dead quiet like a CD and I remember them as having surface noise when I had my Grado cartridge.
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Thanks all.
I don't know what shape stylus is on my clearaudio maestro v1. I think they use their own shape. The stylus tip looks much smaller than what I used when I was a kid.
All I could find relating to the tip shape of Clearaudio carts was this old article from Issue 1 of positivefeedbackonline.com:
"The family of moving magnet cartridges from ClearAudio includes the Alpha, the Beta ($350), the Beta-S ($450) and culminates with the Virtuoso Mk II ($850). It is an unusual specimen to my way of thinking as, like all of its lesser and greater siblings, it has a stylus profile of 4 by 40 micrometers. I’m used to the better-known and more pronounced elliptical shapes of the Shibata, line-contact, fine-line, van den Hul, and hyper-elliptical designs. Most of those stylus shapes have profiles of something like 3 or 4 by 65 to 80 micrometers. A little searching revealed that that Clearaudio’s stylus shape dates back to a late-1960s Japanese design purchased by Peter Suchy, Robert’s father, and still championed to this day."
Peter Suchy is the founder of Clearaudio, so it's maybe their proprietary stylus shape. I don't know whether my newer cart model still uses this shape, but if so, it implies that the tip is even narrower and able to ride even lower in the groove than Shibata. Could it be that I'm riding too low in the groove and hitting gunk driven down into the gutter?
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Thanks all.
I don't know what shape stylus is on my clearaudio maestro v1. I think they use their own shape. The stylus tip looks much smaller than what I used when I was a kid.
All I could find relating to the tip shape of Clearaudio carts was this old article from Issue 1 of positivefeedbackonline.com:
"The family of moving magnet cartridges from ClearAudio includes the Alpha, the Beta ($350), the Beta-S ($450) and culminates with the Virtuoso Mk II ($850). It is an unusual specimen to my way of thinking as, like all of its lesser and greater siblings, it has a stylus profile of 4 by 40 micrometers. I’m used to the better-known and more pronounced elliptical shapes of the Shibata, line-contact, fine-line, van den Hul, and hyper-elliptical designs. Most of those stylus shapes have profiles of something like 3 or 4 by 65 to 80 micrometers. A little searching revealed that that Clearaudio’s stylus shape dates back to a late-1960s Japanese design purchased by Peter Suchy, Robert’s father, and still championed to this day."
Peter Suchy is the founder of Clearaudio, so it's maybe their proprietary stylus shape. I don't know whether my newer cart model still uses this shape, but if so, it implies that the tip is even narrower and able to ride even lower in the groove than Shibata. Could it be that I'm riding too low in the groove and hitting gunk driven down into the gutter?
Could be. Get that steamer out. :D
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Thanks Tom. Got one in my amazon wishlist
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Too bad you are not up here. I see the hand held ones in the Crack House on a pretty regular basis. 8)