Having fun with an EMT XSD15 and S&B TX102 ...

[montesquieu]

I'm having huge fun playing with different cartridges since selling off the AN Io and accompanying ...

Most fun of all at the moment is an EMT XSD15 (SME-type headshell version of the TSD15). This is an absolute cracker, top of the EMT range with super fine line stylus. It manages to out-SPU the vintage SPU I have here (vintage SPU GME) with ballsy and musical performance that nevertheless puts out a shed load of detail.

I knew it had potential but didn't really hear the best of it till Valvebloke (now trading as 'Ampregen') brought round a newly-boxed up set of Stevens & Billington TX102 transformers to play with. I bought these ages ago but they were in a shoddy box and strangely implemented .. Graeme really did a fantastic job re-boxing them and figuring out how to get them to work properly.

Anyway it's really brought the EMT to life. Interesting to compare it to the SPU (through a Jurgen Schou/Ortofon box I bought from Anubisgrau), this is almost like a cross between the GM E and a Decca Jubilee - so lively and lifelike. It's not a modern sound - you'd never confuse it for a Lyra - but it's a very satisfying one.

Quite a few other interesting cartridges in at the moment, pick of the rest is probably a Fidelity Research FR-1 MkIII lovely thing (though the FR-1 MKI I have as well isn't far behind it at all), wonderfully delicate, while a Denon 103R that arrived in the middle of things is holding its end up fairly well (though it's only had a few dozen sides since it got here - bad timing). I bought this as I was hugely enamored with a Soundsmith-modded 103R mono that's currently battling it out with an SPU GM Mono MkII.

Audio Note IQ3 I bought when the Io went in for rebuild is boxed away but was also holding its own pretty well.

Anyway, fun and games here (though will probably need to rationalise come the autumn). A few piccies:

http://i1181.photobucket.com/albums/x440/montesquieu61/XSD15_zps8b5ce444.jpg (http://s1181.photobucket.com/user/montesquieu61/media/XSD15_zps8b5ce444.jpg.html)

http://i1181.photobucket.com/albums/x440/montesquieu61/S_and_B-1_zps4c93c87c.jpg (http://s1181.photobucket.com/user/montesquieu61/media/S_and_B-1_zps4c93c87c.jpg.html)

http://i1181.photobucket.com/albums/x440/montesquieu61/S_and_B-2_zpsb1e7c4df.jpg (http://s1181.photobucket.com/user/montesquieu61/media/S_and_B-2_zpsb1e7c4df.jpg.html)

[Barry]

Congratulations on discovering the audio attributes of the EMT XSD15. I have used one for the last thirty five years, and despite listening to other designs (such as Ortofons and Denons), the EMT still remains my preferred cartridge. The SUT you are using looks interesting. Since it has the provision to alter the cartridge loading, have you experimented with loading the EMT with a higher impedance?

One other question I have to ask is, I note that both your Ortofon SPU and EMT are used in arms that do not have provision to adjust the overhang at the arm base. How can you be assured that the arm/cartridge geometry is correct in either case?

[montesquieu]

Congratulations on discovering the audio attributes of the EMT XSD15. I have use one for the last thiry five years, and despite listening to other designs (such as Ortofons and Denons), the EMT still remains my preferred cartridge. The SUT you are using looks interesting. Since it has the provision to alter the cartridge loading, have you experimented with loading the EMT with a higher impedance?

One other question I have to ask is, I note that both your Ortofon SPU and EMT are used in arms that do not have provision to adjust the overhang at the arm base. How can you be assured that the arm/cartridge geometry is correct in either case?


The S&B is very flexible and it took me some time to get the right setting ... lovely balance though when i found it. Nice bass weight and impact, creamy mids, and a really natural top end. Lovely.

I have done some geometry checks with templates and both seem pretty spot on ... aware there's no base adjustment but both seem to work pretty well. The hole in the TD124 armboard is oversized on the Jelco board and I adjusted its position with my template to match the SPU before screwing the Shuggy collar down so SPU is spot on there anyway and guess the SPU and XSD are the same. Luckily SPU also seems to work with the AT arm (base for this was made and set up by Speedysteve, a renowned SPU fan) so perhaps I was just lucky.

[jaym481]

I have a Thorens MCH II which is basically the same things as the XSD15 I think. I have an interesting problem with it though - the pins on the headshell don't make contact on either of my SME arms (3009 Series 2, very old fixed rear split weight version, and 3012 Series 2). The pins make contact in my FR64S, but the latter's counterweight is too heavy.

I love that SUT Tom.

[Barry]

I have a Thorens MCH II which is basically the same things as the XSD15 I think. I have an interesting problem with it though - the pins on the headshell don't make contact on either of my SME arms (3009 Series 2, very old fixed rear split weight version, and 3012 Series 2). The pins make contact in my FR64S, but the latter's counterweight is too heavy.

I love that SUT Tom.

The contact 'pips' on the XSD15 (and I presume also on the MCH II) are very shallow, so may not make good contact with the spring-loaded contacts of the SME arm. On some SME arms, the contacts can 'stick', and need loosening up by pushing them in and out a few times using a toothpick or something similar.

[petrat]

The S&B is very flexible and it took me some time to get the right setting ... lovely balance though when i found it. Nice bass weight and impact, creamy mids, and a really natural top end. Lovely.

All looking good, Tom. I've always wanted to hear an EMT 15, hoping it would sound as you described it. The implementation of the S&B transformers by Valvebloke looks excellent. So, are the settings in the photo the best for the EMT?

[pure sound]

Lovely looking job by Graeme (Ampregen) there.

[montesquieu]

All looking good, Tom. I've always wanted to hear an EMT 15, hoping it would sound as you described it. The implementation of the S&B transformers by Valvebloke looks excellent. So, are the settings in the photo the best for the EMT?

1:10 but best on the open/top setting (450) though was hard to make up my mind between that and open/1:20 (1100). It's 1mV output /24 ohm at the coil so you'd think it wouldn't need the gain but the mysteries of SUT continue to baffle me.

[Barry]

It's a bit of a puzzle: the EMT 15 has an output of 0.15mV (at 1cm/s) and the coil resistance is 24 Ohm. So with a typical groove velocity of 5cm/s, the output will be 0.75mV, which suggests a 1:5 step-up ratio would be sufficient (i.e. 3.75mV). Yet EMT use a 1:10 transformer in all of their SUTs and phonostages. Quad, for example, also recommend using the MC card with 400uV sensitivity.

As to the correct loading impedance, with a 24 Ohm coil resistance the usual recommendation is to load the cartridge with ~10x that value, that is 240 Ohm, yet Quad suggest 100 Ohm and I have seen mention of higher impedances of 600 - 800 Ohm mentioned. When the Absolute Sound magazine reviewed the EMT, they loaded the cartridge with 800 Ohm. :scratch:

So what do/did EMT themselves recommend? Well taking their STX21 transformer, the loading impedance is 189.6 Ohm when feeding the phono input of a preamp with a nominal 47K Ohm impedance (the loading impedance as seen by the cartridge includes the winding resistance of the transformer).

With the EMT 153 phonostage; the input impedance is 180 Ohm, ignoring the winding resistance and probably ~ 200 Ohm when this is included.

Likewise with the EMT 155 phonostage; the input impedance is switchable between 207Ohm and 296Ohm, neglecting the winding resistance and ~ 225 Ohm and ~314 Ohm respectively if the resistance is included.

For the last thirty odd years I have loaded the EMT with 100 Ohm when used in an SME arm, and I presume, somewhere between 207 and 225 Ohm when used in the EMT deck with the 155 phonostage. I can't say I have noticed any difference between the two.

If you have found a setting you like, then that is all that matters - don't worry about it. :)

[wiicrackpot]

Thread drift for a moment, is that a ATP 12t arm (can't be sure because the SPU shell and funny weight),
if so can you tell me how you sourced a armlift for it?, i am interested in one for mine.

[Barry]

I thought it was an AT 1503 Mk. III, but with a different counterweight. :scratch:

[montesquieu]

Thread drift for a moment, is that a ATP 12t arm (can't be sure because the SPU shell and funny weight),
if so can you tell me how you sourced a armlift for it?, i am interested in one for mine.

Yes it's an ATP12T :)

The arm lift arrangement (and the tungsten weight - I have the original but it was too weedy to handle an SPU) was done by our very own Speedysteve. Fantastic job it is too. I have the original arm support (normally separately located further up the arm board) but Steve added one of those in as well on the arm lift plate.

He also did the african blackwood (I think) arm pod for it and fitted it to the plinth; refurbed the plinth; and did a matching armboard for a FR24 MKII. The FR is a very nice arm (quite different to the Jelco) but I'm having trouble with the arm cable at the moment, need to get it sorted.

[wiicrackpot]

Thanks Tom, will contact Speedysteve for a quote in due course. :)

The original CW too weedy to handle a SPU, :eek: i thought it was quite a lump of weight already.

[paskinn]

In fairness, the semi DIY implementation of the 102 bears an obvious resemblance to S and Bs own step up, marketed as Music First and available for the last ten years. The SandB also uses the superior 103 transformers.
It is seriously good....but never seems to attract much attention. Such is life.

[montesquieu]

In fairness, the semi DIY implementation of the 102 bears an obvious resemblance to S and Bs own step up, marketed as Music First and available for the last ten years. The SandB also uses the superior 103 transformers.
It is seriously good....but never seems to attract much attention. Such is life.

Actually these are TX103s ... TX102 above was slip of the fingers (the TX102 is the transformer attenuator as used in the Music First TVC - funilly enough I have the Music First MkII version of these - factory version with remote control - installed as my preamp at the moment).

And indeed, very good as you say.

EDIT: just to add that this step-up is implemented pretty much exactly as the original TX103 is by S&B themselves with all four step-up ratios enabled (rather than fixed at one only as some of them are). On the other side there are three settings with loading resistors and one open, for each of these ratios, to give four settings at every step-up ratio. But there's one wrinkle here that that factory S&B one doesn't have which is the ability to bypass, which I find pretty handy when changing headshell for a MM cartridge - I can switch the SUT out altogether which is dead handy.

[anubisgrau]

interesting, i was so much annoyed with a bypass button on my new SUT i couldn't figure out for what it is meant ..... thanks for opening my eyes :)