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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!bellcore!petrus!scherzo!allegra!oliveb!olivee!greg
From: greg@olivee.UUCP (Greg Paley)
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: Re: My damn (new) cartridge don`t work! Was it something that I said?
Message-ID: <502@olivee.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 7-Oct-85 13:17:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: olivee.502
Posted: Mon Oct  7 13:17:06 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 10-Oct-85 06:48:03 EDT
References: <3204@teklabs.UUCP>, <474@aero.ARPA> <4378@alice.UUCP>, <494@olivee.UUCP> <4383@alice.UUCP>
Organization: Olivetti ATC; Cupertino, Ca
Lines: 41

> Greg, you should be a bit more careful when you say
> "not true", since it's only not true to you, or
> to people who have the same perceptual ?style?ethos?method?.
> 

I should have been clearer.  My "not true" comment was not directed at the
surmise that the Shure cartridges were the best.  It was directed at the
comment that their low price was all that was keeping them out of the
snob circles.  My point was that there are cartridges in the same price
bracket that are "in" with the snob circles, and that the Grace and Grado
were examples.  Being a snob and an elitist, I also happen to prefer the
sound of Grace and Grado to the Shure, although I prefer the Audioquest 
to either those or the Shure.

Aside from personal tastes, the question of which cartridge sounds
better is going to depend quite a bit on the associated equipment.
Aside from the "trackability", one of the important advantages of the
Shure cartridges is the wide range of arms within which they will
work well.  The Grace, on the other hand, demands a very rigid but
low-mass arm and considerable flexibility for alignment - the azimuth,
overhang, and VTA are more critical, and therefore more difficult to
set up.  If your arm won't allow you to change the VTA, or is mounted
so that you can't get the overhang right (as is the case with many
turntables that come with the arm already installed), you're likely to
encounter much more of a performance degradation with the Grace than a
Shure.  The Grado cartridges I've encountered are less fussy in this
regard.  The Audioquest, on the other hand, needs a high mass arm and
considerable resonance damping on the headshell.

These are the sort of issues that I, frankly, find a major pain in the
ass and which finally drove me toward buying primarily CD's, even though
I actually prefer the sound of a number of LP's.

The amp and speakers make a difference also, of course.  When I first
switched from a Shure V15-5 to a Grace F9-Ruby, I preferred the Grace,
even when listening through the Telefunken receiver and Bose 601's I
had then.  When, however, I switched to Hafler electronics and 
Vandersteen IIc speakers, the gain in detail and accuracy that the
Grace offered over the Shure became far more apparent.

	- Greg Paley