Shure M3D - yet another truly great classic cartridge

[Barry]

The low frequency resonance is something to do with HOW MUCH as well as what frequency I think.

The Dual arm has a tuned counterweight (the main mass is suspended on a spring of somesort inside the cage to cancel out as much as possible any reactions with the chassis suspension) and this minimises the huge rise at resonance apparently. The "handling feedback" I refer to is a structural microphony whan I man-handle the headshell area and with the Pickering it's very severe. The ADC varients don't seem to do this and neither do the V15's or the heavier MC's.

The M3D would have a truly MASSIVE arm/cart resonance I suspect and an SME (even the pre-improved) would struggle to contain this I reckon. Used with a very heavy arm with solid headshell as Marco does, should reduce the resonant frequency as well as the amplitude. The N21 stylus does seem a slightly finer and better damped device altogether, judging from my non Shure replacement.

Regarding arm-cartridge resonant frequency, an old pal of mine (Graham Holliman) used to use a Sansui direct drive (the one with the best W&F figures in an Angus MacKenzie test) with an ADC XLM - the very highly compliant one - and weight the headshell down even further, giving a resonant frequency of 5 Hz. Surprisingly, the thing was quite stable on most discs and on well recorded Decca pressings of things like Kings College Cambrige Choir, the sound through his JBL Paragon clones was palpable, if extremely coloured - the atmosphere of the venue easily felt as well as heard. Inserting a 20Hz filter as many phono stages do made the sound more "mechanical" somehow.......

Ah, if your refering to noises heard just be simply handling the arm/cartridge combination (presumably with the volume turned up), then this is more difficult to explain. The microphony must be due to vibrational forces somehow causing the cartridge to generate a signal. And for that to happen, the stylus/cantilever has to move relative to the body of the cartridge/headshell/arm. This is more likely to happen with cartridges having a high compliance un-damped suspension, but I would have thought it would require a very high cantilever/stylus mass - or have I missed something?

Graham Holliman - now there's a name from the past! Infra-bass and all that. I could never understand how he prevented his low LF tuned arm/cartridge from being upset by the infra bass frequencies he claimed to be able to reproduce, or did he have the TT in another room?

Barry

[hifi_dave]

I don't remember him ever managing to produce any 'infra-bass'. All I remember is him getting very angry when we didn't like the sound he produced after having the whole day to set things up just the way he wanted.

[Darrenw]

MArco

any news on how your m3d does re needle talk - I am suspecting its influenced by my alcove but can;t imagine its all to do with that - might take the stylus out and start again to try setting it up from scratch

rgds
darren

[Marco]

Hi Darren,

How's it going? I can report that it doesn't sound anything like what your describing... You can try setting things up again but I reckon it's your alcove.

Did you get your anti-skating issues sorted out?

Marco.

[Darrenw]

its going round in circles I think - will leave it til I can get a second opinion

have added a bit more weight today to see what that does a penny on the head and a couple on the weight - looks a little odd to the causual observer to say the least now

rgds
darren

[SPS]

Mine sings along quite loud too..
it is the needle.. the arm is well damped

is it a good sign? i'd guess i could tape a horn of an old wind up gramaphone to it ...and get quite a sound

mine's been resting this week.. a much more modern cartridge is playing

a (very rare i think?) dynavector 30a from 1981.. it tracks better than i've been able to get the m3 to .. and sounds almost as good

steve

[DSJR]

My N21 has a very much smaller diameter cantilever to the standard N3D one the cartridge came with (diamond and shank weren't there) and I get little to no needle talk.

Re Infra Bass, Graham (who's an old pal of mine) made some interesting points - perhaps for the wrong reasons I don't know. For example, he was changing coupling caps on Naim amps long before it became fashionable in some circles to do so. His reasoning was the start the bass rolloff at 5Hz max, rather than 10Hz as standard. He also showed me the massive phase shifts caused by Naims old HF filter (all but cured with the 72/102/82/52 and modern replacements I think). I also remember the IMF pro Monitors going down flat to 14Hz (door rattling frequency) and fairly well down to 10Hz although this was more of a pressure wave (no wonder our master-copy of DSOTM made my ears pump in and out on the heartbeat).

I did a better setup of my M3D today, fitting it into a better headslide, reducing the extra mass a little and changing the fixing screws. You know, this really is a good cartridge with the N21 stylus and it certainly sounds great on the current batch of LP's I've been playing (the Dual should be a 1019 rather than the 701 really). The ADC's are still slightly "cleaner" but lack that "push" that the M3D/N21 and Supex have. I'll tell you summat again though, some original 1970's rock/jazz-rock LP's I have sound pretty dire, lacking any bass and "scale."

[MartinT]

I also remember the IMF pro Monitors going down flat to 14Hz (door rattling frequency) and fairly well down to 10Hz although this was more of a pressure wave (no wonder our master-copy of DSOTM made my ears pump in and out on the heartbeat).

I converted a pair of IMF Professional Monitors for bi-amping for a friend some 30 years ago. He ran them with a superb pair of ultra-rare Dynavector valve monoblocks and a Radford hybrid power amp. They had wonderful midrange communication and could certainly create pressure waves in the bass. I remember those Dynavectors fondly and have never seen them mentioned since.

[SPS]

Just to add,
mine is using the n21 stylus, the turntable is mounted in a corner so that may be adding some horn loading to the needle talk..

cheers steve

[Darrenw]

one option I have is to take it out of the alcove to see what that does to the needle talk but as one on here pointed out - why would you listen to the record spinning without the amps on too - if it isnt bothering the record then I am not too bothered I guess

mine is N21 as well steve

darren