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Shelter 501 with Wilson Benesch?

I'm considering buying the Shelter 501 for use with the Wilson Benesch Act 0.5 arm, but am concerned that this may not be the best match since the WB is a unipivot and the cartridge is a low-compliance design. Does this seem like a well-founded concern, and are there any other great-sounding MC cartridges that should work especially well with the WB arms?

On another topic, I am thinking of doing away with the sprung suspension on my Michell Orbe SE and mating the plinth directly to some type of high performance brass cones. I use the TT in a finished basement with concrete floor, so footfalls are not an issue. Has anyone tried anything along these lines that worked well?
plato
plato OP
1,543 posts
 
Hi TWL,

Thanks for your input -- I believe I will try the Shelter 501 on the WB arm. I think it may work just fine. When I get it all set up, I'll let you know how it performs.

It's funny -- I like everything about the design of the Orbe SE except for that spring suspension. I may give Pierre Sprey a call at Mapleshade and see if he might be able to come up with a simple practical plan to impliment an effective direct-coupled suspension. Your point on putting the turntable on a very solid structure is well taken and I will endeavor to do exactly that. Thanks again for the tips!
twl
3,251 posts
 
Well Plato, one thing is for sure, if you don't like the matchup, there will be a line of people waiting to buy it from you. So there is almost no risk involved with that purchase.
hackmaster
102 posts
 
Just as an aside, if you don't like the Shelter on the WB arm, try the WB cartridges. Their own cartridges are awesome - I love them. Their higher end carbon fibre bodied models are really exceptional, but even their entry level models are quite strong. And of course the synergy with the WB arm is there.

The WB arm gets around a lot of the conventional cartridge matching problems of other unipivots for the reasons Twl mentions. The arm is a modified unipivot so it has some stabilizers and other mechanical changes which I feel improve on the standard unipivot design.
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