fidelity research fr1 mk2????

[kingbx95]

hi all

as per my wanted ad I've been after a new cartridge as an upgrade. thought I had a Decca London blue with fresh line contact stylus but it fell through.

I've also been looking at the dl103 with shibata tip and alumide body.. but compliance and the performance being a relatively unknown quantity held me back

I've been eyeing up the fr1 from emporium for a few weeks.. there is very little info on this but what is out there is positive.. my question is does any have any experience of this cartridge? or have any input on how suitable it is on my setup..

setup is heavily modified td160 solid burr elm plinth etc.. arm choices are a well sorted tp16mk1 and an original mission774

I use a trichord dino mk1 into a unison research s2 as I know that will have a bearing on cartridge choice

thabks for your time reading my ramblings

[hifi_dave]

I reviewed it for Hi-Fi for Pleasure magazine back in the late 70s and was castigated for recommending a moving-coil cartridge, which was old technology and according to "Martin" was so bad, it should never reach the market. To my ears, it was excellent at that time and opened up a whole new world but you will need a robust, high mass arm to get the best from it.

[kingbx95]

that's really interesting.. fantastic to hear from someone with that kind of first hand experience with the fr1 thank you...

may not be that well suited to my arm choices then.. the 774 does have damping and the tp16 comes in at 16.5g

any other suggestions as options?

I've seen an iq3 for sale it's slightly over budget .. keen to use the mission arm preferably

[DiveDeepDog]

I had one in the last Stoke bake-off fitted to Sony6750.


Think it went down well enough, I must dust it off and give it a go :-)

[kingbx95]

the fr1? any opinion of it working on either of my arms?
thanks again folks

[walpurgis]

I suspect it will function well enough in either of your arms. However, it is a pretty old cartridge of unknown hours usage from a long defunct maker and getting it serviced or repaired would not be cheap, if possible.

[montesquieu]

Lowish compliance of 10 (about the same as a Koetsu) means you probably want a heavier, high-mass arm for it ... there are those that insist that increasing the fluid damping on the Mission will do the trick but I have my doubts about that.

I've owned all three versions of the FR-1 - the MkIII is silver coil and quite special. MkII was nice as I recall, refined and quite grown up in an Ortofon-ish sort of way. (Much better than your average Denon 103 for example). It has low output though - 0.1mV - so you need a hefty step-up of 1:30 on it maybe even 1:40 (Hashimoto HM3 provides the latter). If you have a heavy arm and an adequate SUT it's quite the bargain. (I'd say at 0.1mV you are reaching the sensible noise limits of a head amp or internal MC stage though - it has to be step-up at that voltage).

[walpurgis]

there are those that insist that increasing the fluid damping on the Mission will do the trick

There certainly are. :)

[kingbx95]

I use a trichord dino so not sure if that's suitable.. was hoping it wpuld do the job lol

this is hard. I want something that will work well with what I have and be a substantial upgrade

thanks everyone

[hifi_dave]

Would help to know your budget.

[kingbx95]

sorry it's in the wanted ad.... £2-250

[hifi_dave]

An AT-F7 is well within budget and you can rest assured it hasn't been mistreated.