Grace F9 F8 F-9 F-8 Andante F9 F-9 H S Sumiko Pearl Supex Phono Stylus GAS Sleeping Beauty
According to most reports, Sumiko made both the F-8 and F-9. A good friend, who was a Supex, Audire, B&W and Theta rep back then, told me the F-9 was actually made by Supex, which would make sense, since Supex made all Grace moving coils. Also, I would imagine that Sumiko would have a stylus or two available if they made it.
Sumiko imported these into the US, as well as Andante as a part of their line, and as a separate line for non-Sumiko dealers. FYI, The GAS Sleeping Beauty M/C was Supex 9E+, simply pressed into an an outer mounting shell. I use the Supex Mark IV (Timeline: E, E+, E+ Super, Mark IV are all the same, as far as my ears can tell. They just renamed it every few years.), which eventually morphed into Koetsu, and all of these are really great.
The Grace F9 came with different styli, the green E is elliptical with an alloy cantilever, and the the S is spherical. The red, top of the line is the Ruby, an elliptical with a ruby cantilever. There were both elliptical and line contact tips with a boron cantilever. There are even more F-9's, and all the same cartridge body and internals.
For nearly complete info, check here, but some of the photos are wrong, i.e. a green cantilever holder on a non- F-9:
http://www.vinylengine.com/cartridg...chi=&stid=&masslo=&masshi=¬es=&prlo=&prhi=
The original F-9 has a round shank, but a square one fits perfectly, because the inside has offset, rectangular shank, locating springs. I know, because I Have an E and sell an aftermarket S with the square shank. It sounds at least as good as the original S. Many of my customers say it sounds better, but I realize that this is simply because their 9 is worn out and this allows it to drag the bottom of the groove, giving both noise and poor contact pressure.
All F-9 styli are interchangeable between either company's F-9.
The Sumiko Pearl was also marketed by Grace as the F-8, and by Andante as the H or S with spherical styli. The Pearl and Black Pearl styli from Sumiko are a complete match and work very nicely.
The Sumiko styli do not work in the F-9 nor vice versa. I state this in my eBay ad, but some people are hard to convince. My stylus can be forced into the F-8 (According to the one customer who kept it, but had to order a second one after destroying the first, then he put this monstrosity up for sale on eBay.) I had a second one returned because he said it only put out on one channel. I am surprised it did that. The cantilever itself is a different length and the magnet does not align with the pickup in the cartridge body. I could modify it, but why bother, when Sumiko has good ones available.
I hope this helps. Dan Vignau
I was a Sumiko, (and Grace) dealer for many years back in the day. Sumiko was NEVER a manufacturer, they were and still are a distributor/rep company. Raul is correct that Grace was made by Shinawaga Musen in Japan. I also own several Grace cartridges and tonearms. http://www.trademarkia.com/grace-73170388.html |
I own a Grace tonearm and two Grace Ruby cartridges. I was surprised to read that Grace and Sumiko could be associated, because I have never particularly liked the sound of any Sumiko label cartridge, whereas I count the Ruby as one of my all time favorites. Raul mentioned that I had one of my Ruby's re-tipped by Sound Smith. I opted for the OCL top of the line stylus on a ruby cantilever (of course). After a pretty thorough trial, listening to it not only on my system but on Dave Pogue's system as well, I (and Dave Pogue) concluded it sounded "bad". (Details elsewhere, but all the faults I heard on my system were immediately evident on DP's system.) The cartridge then sat in a drawer for over a year, after Peter Ledermann invited me to return it, and I just now sent it back to him for their evaluation. (My bad; I just hadn't felt the need.) This is not meant to reflect badly on SS; obviously they are capable of great results, and they are beyond reproach when it comes to ethics. Either my particular mounting was defective, or the OCL does not work well on the Ruby. Recently, I connected with someone who told me that he knows of two other persons who were not pleased with the OCL/Ruby comparison and one person who is ecstatic with his SS "level 2" line contact rebuild of his Ruby, claiming it outperforms the original elliptical. So, the less expensive option may be the way to go with the Ruby. On the other hand, maybe Dave Garretson had a different experience with the OCL. Dave? |
I had my F-9E Ruby re-tipped by Mr. Ledermann a few years ago, with what I believe Lew is referring to as the "level 2" option (what was then the $250 option, non-specific to the F-9, which is now the option that is "$299 minimum"). While various other changes were occurring in my system around the same time, I feel confident in saying that the re-tipped cartridge outperformed the original F-9E Ruby. The improvement was especially evident on classical piano music, especially in the treble region. I have been using it on a 1980’s Magnepan Unitrac tonearm. In the coming weeks, btw, I’m planning on purchasing a Dynavector 17D3 LOMC, which member Rodman99999 had mentioned to me in a thread some time ago is "magic" in that particular arm. Should make for an interesting comparison. Regards, -- Al |
Thanks for that input, Al. I am more and more thinking I should ask Peter to simply replace the OCL with their less exotic line contact ("level 2") stylus, assuming he will find no other problem unique to the original re-tipping of my cartridge. I examined it with a microscope, and the only thing I could wonder about was a fairly large gob of glue that fixes the stylus to the cantilever. Not having examined many such mountings in the past, I don't know whether the amount of glue is "normal" or excessive. I will have to rely on Peter to tell me that. Funny you should mention the DV 17D3 here; I have a virtually NOS one sitting around, inherited from the estate of a good friend. |
Limited time offer from SoundSmith: http://www.sound-smith.com/parts/grace-f9-replacement-stylus Peter's own made F9 replacement stylus design options: Soundsmith OCL Nude stylus-Ruby Cantilever RUBY-OCL (RED) $499 Soundsmith CL Nude stylus-Ruby Cantilever RUBY-CL (RED) $399 Soundsmith Nude CL Stylus-Aluminum Cantilever RS-9U (BLUE) $299 Soundsmith Nude Elliptical stylus-Aluminum Cantilever RS-9E (BLUE) $199 |
