Mike - H
12-01-2017, 15:44
Hi guys, happy New Year, hope you all had a good Christmas. Leading up to Christmas I invested heavily in my vinyl system, I wanted to try a mono cartridge as about 20% of my discs are mono. What I didn’t want was a load of messing about switching from one to the other, so I went for an Audio-Technica AT33EV and its mono sibling. As these are my first foray into MC I also splashed out on a Graham Slee Reflex C plus a Yanis lead.
So today was my first serious listening session since installing these upgrades. My first impressions of moving coil carts is very positive, a level of clarity and a depth of bass I wasn’t expecting. After listening to a couple 33s I went to one of three 45rpm albums I got for Christmas, Dire straits Brothers in Arms, really impressed by quality from this format. I was thinking I wouldn’t buy many more 45s because of having to get up and turn them every couple of tracks (I am getting on in years after all) but I now think that if your favourite albums are available in this format they would be well worth it.
I also experimented with several different mats, for about 6 or 7 years I’ve been using a TAD spotmat #10 (google it) So I tried a few others to see if things could be improved, I tried the original Gerrard mat which I’d never tried, then a cork/rubber mixture, an acrylic mat and a leather mat and I’ve ended up back at my spot mat. I can’t say it’s miles better than any of the others but nor can I say any of them were better, so I’m staying with what know I like. Might make a new one in a different colour, lime green’s not doing it for me anymore, more expense, 99p.
As every silver lining has to have a cloud, the mono cart isn’t working on both channels unless I switch the reflex C to mono, which I guess is just splitting the one side. I don’t’ know of any tests or checks other than refitting the cartridge pins in case ones a bad contact, but I’m expecting to have to send it back for testing and/or replacement but at least I’m chuffed with the switch to moving coil if only in stereo for now.
So today was my first serious listening session since installing these upgrades. My first impressions of moving coil carts is very positive, a level of clarity and a depth of bass I wasn’t expecting. After listening to a couple 33s I went to one of three 45rpm albums I got for Christmas, Dire straits Brothers in Arms, really impressed by quality from this format. I was thinking I wouldn’t buy many more 45s because of having to get up and turn them every couple of tracks (I am getting on in years after all) but I now think that if your favourite albums are available in this format they would be well worth it.
I also experimented with several different mats, for about 6 or 7 years I’ve been using a TAD spotmat #10 (google it) So I tried a few others to see if things could be improved, I tried the original Gerrard mat which I’d never tried, then a cork/rubber mixture, an acrylic mat and a leather mat and I’ve ended up back at my spot mat. I can’t say it’s miles better than any of the others but nor can I say any of them were better, so I’m staying with what know I like. Might make a new one in a different colour, lime green’s not doing it for me anymore, more expense, 99p.
As every silver lining has to have a cloud, the mono cart isn’t working on both channels unless I switch the reflex C to mono, which I guess is just splitting the one side. I don’t’ know of any tests or checks other than refitting the cartridge pins in case ones a bad contact, but I’m expecting to have to send it back for testing and/or replacement but at least I’m chuffed with the switch to moving coil if only in stereo for now.