Shure leaving the phono market.

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Marco Gilardetti
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Re: Shure leaving the phono market.

Post by Marco Gilardetti »

WDC wrote:The stylus body is one of the poorest designs I have come by, a complete nightmare to swap.
If you're still talking about the Shure M78S in this passage, I have to agree with this. Bolts and nuts tended to expand the plastic case and it was impossible to firmly fasten the cartridge to the shell. It was somewhat ironic that the inner body of the cartridge had a metal mantel, while the exterior was clad with that sort of floppy plastic.

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Wolfe
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Re: Shure leaving the phono market.

Post by Wolfe »

Marco Gilardetti wrote:
WDC wrote:I have a 4 mil Nagaoka for an Nagaoka MP cart that I bought from LP Gear. It does a decent job, except that you can't track real heavy with it. I haven't checked precisely, but it's one of those deals where 3 grams tracking force is probably about the max.
General building quality aside, this is exactly the same reason why I never really felt to "suggest" the purchase of the Shure M78S: too low max tracking force, too high compliance for being appointed as an "all round" 78 cartridge. It was O.K. on late non-warped electrically recorded 78s, but on older stuff with less-than-perfect groove spacing it wobbled terribly.
Well, if one does have a M78S that they still want to make something of, the LP Gear replacement stylus for the M78S is a very low compliance stylus, you actually have to kind of pile on the weight to get it performing it's best, very much the opposite of the original Shure stylus. The LP Gear is also a 3 mil. I believe forum member Melvind took that suggestion and said that he was pleased. I use the LP Gear stylus in a M97xe cart rather than the M78S.

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Re: Shure leaving the phono market.

Post by melvind »

Wolfe wrote:Well, if one does have a M78S that they still want to make something of, the LP Gear replacement stylus for the M78S is a very low compliance stylus, you actually have to kind of pile on the weight to get it performing it's best, very much the opposite of the original Shure stylus. The LP Gear is also a 3 mil. I believe forum member Melvind took that suggestion and said that he was pleased. I use the LP Gear stylus in a M97xe cart rather than the M78S.
Yes, I did get the 3mil LP Gear replacement and I have found it works better than the 2.5 mil that came with the M78S. With the 3mil record many records I considered too worn to record actually sounded pretty well. I'd love to also have a 4mil for some of my older records, but I haven't found anything to purchase. But, I also have not really tried to find one all that hard.
Last edited by melvind on Fri May 04, 2018 4:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Wolfe
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Re: Shure leaving the phono market.

Post by Wolfe »

Marco Gilardetti wrote: in my opinion moving coil cartridges are and will always be a niche market because most vinyl enthusiasts (myself included) are not so prone to add an expensive MC preamplifier and deal with an expensive cartridge which stylus can't be replaced in order to get some imaginary sound improvement, more on paper than in ears.
There are a few inexpensive preamps that can handle an MC, like the favorably reviewed Schiit Mani, which is barely over $ 100.00 I use an Emotiva XPS-1 which has MM / MC switching right on the front and runs a little less than 200 dollars. The MC cart I use currently is a NOS Denon DL 300 that I got for about $ 150.00. It's an expansive soundstage, textured and detailed, lovely sounding cart and in many ways better than my next best Ortofon Super OM 30 (moving iron) cart, except that the Denon is quite lush, too much sometimes. I cartridge swap, so a TT with removable headshell is a must for me. :) I like to have MC and MM/MI options on hand, both have pluses and drawbacks.

O/T ramble over...

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Wolfe
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Re: Shure leaving the phono market.

Post by Wolfe »

WDC wrote:
Wolfe wrote:Anybody tried Nagaoka 78 styli ?

I have a 4 mil Nagaoka for an Nagaoka MP cart that I bought from LP Gear. It does a decent job, except that you can't track real heavy with it. I haven't checked precisely, but it's one of those deals where 3 grams tracking force is probably about the max.
Yes, I have the NMP 3.5 needle along with the MP-110 which can really sound amazing. But I agree, a tracking force of about just 2g is nothing that works reliably enough for general use. They should have definitely lowered the compliance for the 78rpm styli. Otherwise, the reproduction quality can outperform the large variety of styli for Stanton, Shure and AudioTechnica that I also have.

However, there's another problem, which appears to be related to the low tracking force. It appears as if some fine dirt can accumulate behind the diamond until it moves over it. This is very much audible and does not appear with other carts and higher tracking forces.

Nevertheless, the Nagaoka is really something to try out. For LP's I have been using the MP-500 with boron cantilever and it reproduces just perfectly.
Checking now with my Shure cartridge force gauge, I was able to get 4 grams on the Nagaoka stylus at which point it's suspension started to sag. I can track a record at that force too, though I don't think I'm that assured doing so. So, I'm sticking with 3 grams max for this 4.0 Naga stylus, it appears to handle that comfortably.

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