recomend me a cartridge please

[karma67]

as above,what would work well with my sony ps-x60 tt,the arm is a pua-7 and has a mass of 20g
im thinking along the lines of denon dl-110,103,301 etc but open to other makes that would work well with the arm.
id ideally like to be around the 2m black area of sonics but near enough is fine.
the cartridge resonance thing goes over my head so im hoping you guys can help?

[Barry]

as above,what would work well with my sony ps-x60 tt,the arm is a pua-7 and has a mass of 20g
im thinking along the lines of denon dl-110,103,301 etc but open to other makes that would work well with the arm.
id ideally like to be around the 2m black area of sonics but near enough is fine.
the cartridge resonance thing goes over my head so im hoping you guys can help?

Can't comment on the sound of the Denons vis a vis the Ortofon 2M Black (I only have experience of the DL103, and none of the 2M Black), but I can calculate the low frequency resonance values for each of the Denons in your arm.

Denon quote the dynamic compliance for their cartridges at 100Hz, whereas we need the values at ~ 10Hz. It is assumed that at 10Hz the value is 1.5 - 2.0 x the value at 100Hz. I'll take a mid ratio of 1.75x. Using cartridge masses and 100Hz compliance values quoted by vinylengine.com, we calculate:

Denon DL103 - 10.1Hz

Denon DL110 - 8.5Hz

Denon DL301 - 6.7Hz

The combination of the DL301 with the Sony arm IMO places the low frequency resonance at too low a value, and depending on the suspension of your turntable and what it sits on, you could experience problems from foot-falls.

[blackholesun]

Some time ago I searched the web for info on the effective mass of pua-7 and the values people gave varied wildly, from 15 to 25g.

Jamie, I used both DL-110 and DL-103R with that arm. And Benz Ace SL as well. DL-110 is excellent for punchy rock. DL-103R has wide soundstage, brighter top I would say, is very musical but it doesn't have that punch and grunt of DL-110. Not with that tonearm at least. Do you have the extra counterweight? My Sony came without one, I'm wondering whether it would make any difference.

IME DL-110 is also much less demanding of the phono stage than DL-103R.

[karma67]

cheers chris,ive had a dl-110 and 160 before and rate them,i dont have the extra weight,what alignment did you use,the stock sony one on the reverse of the mat seems a weird one,using the stock headshell i found the 2m black wouldn't go back far enough to get it right.
i mainly listen to pink floyd ,kate bush and the like.
it would seem then perhaps the 103r might be a better choice then barry? cheers for the calculations :)

[blackholesun]

Kate Bush you say, eh? Check out my avatar :-D
As for alignment I followed Sony instructions and set up the stylus 49mm from the headshell collar, if I remember correctly. Then I used the reverse of the mat to see if the cantilever was ok. And it works great, with all the three carts I described, no distortion, no IGD. I was also suspicious of this set up method because with Rega it's the arc template which can be a bit tedious to dial in correctly.
One time I messed up and set up DL-103r 2mm incorrect, and you know what - it still sounded fab to me.
And the ability to set up azimuth is superb for advanced stylus profiles, such as Benz.

[walpurgis]

Well I'm selling Aerial on here (shameless plug! :))

[blackholesun]

Oh I remember buying it for around 20 quid. Happy times!

Jamie, with the music you listen to, the cartridge that does it best in my system is Benz... but it's a bit more costly, unfortunately...

Meddle and The Kick Inside are my reference LPs :)

[walpurgis]

Oh I remember buying it for around 20 quid. Happy times!

Approaching £400 seems to be the asking price these days. Crazy!

[karma67]

ive just spent the last 5 minutes looking for an aierial cartridge! :doh:
i much prefer her early stuff

[Barry]

cheers chris,ive had a dl-110 and 160 before and rate them,i dont have the extra weight,what alignment did you use,the stock sony one on the reverse of the mat seems a weird one,using the stock headshell i found the 2m black wouldn't go back far enough to get it right.
i mainly listen to pink floyd ,kate bush and the like.
it would seem then perhaps the 103r might be a better choice then barry? cheers for the calculations :)

Yes, the Denon 103R will be fine. According to vinylengine.com the effective mass of your PUA-7 arm is 20g, and with the usual disclaimers, the calculated LF resonance will lay somewhere between 9.4 and 10.9Hz.

[karma67]

thanks barry! :cool:
now the question remains...do i really need 2 turntables??

[Qwin]

ive just spent the last 5 minutes looking for an aierial cartridge! :doh:
i much prefer her early stuff

You saved me looking :D