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Removable headshells 101

Due to the influence of Raul's thread on MM cartridges, I believe that some of us (perhaps for the first time), have acquired a tonearm/s with a removable headshell?
In my case, there was a vacuum of knowledge or information about what makes a good headshell and for the last 6 months a great deal of my time and effort has been expended in acquiring personal hands-on experience.
Perhaps a Forum to share experiences will help new adherents to this once denigrated (by the High End) segment of tonearm design?
128x128halcro
dlaloum
227 posts
 
Well my experiments with resonance damping on arm & headshell have failed miserably...

Not because it doesn't work, but because my current test track/measurement method has accuracy that is around +/- 0.25db....

That results in variations of up to 0.5db between two readings of the same setup....

My gut feeling looking at the plotted results is that I can see a shift, but it is small (less than 0.5db) and not demonstrably repeatable...

Bye for now

David
2channel8
634 posts
 
I'd really like to revitalize this thread (minus the verbose theories) and share experiences to see if ant predictable combinations become clear.
I will confine my comments to my Sumiko Premier MMT with Cards rewire. I had been researching a possible replacement arm for my Oracle Alex MK III; but I am abandoning that for now, as the only affordable options seem to involve fixed headshells. So I'm looking to tweak the Sumiko. If anyone knows of any good tweak for the MMT, feel free to share.

The cartridges/headshell I use:
Hana SL/Sumiko with Cardas Rhoduim wires the rubber collar washer is lost. 19.26 g/lowish? compliance
I've ordered a Yammamoto HS-4 (carbon) intended for this one because I just can't leave well enough alone and I think I thought I may have heard something I slightly didn't like on one LP the other night.

Denon DL-301 II/LP gear Supreme 18.52 g/22 uN
Dynavector 10X3/TT-N 19.63 g/12 uN (I use damping)
Shure V15 RS SAS/Ortofon SH-4 16.24 g/25 uN and Stabilizer

I listened to the Shure, Hana, and Dynvector with and without collar washers today. No earthshaking differences; I think I prefer the Hana without and the Shure with. The Dyno sounded the same.

As I said, I plan on mating the HS-4, which is about 0.7 g lighter than the Sumiko, with the Hana.
I am thinking I'll move the Dyno to the Sumiko to lighten the load there. But maybe the DL-301.....?

Regarding leads, I am not sure I buy the idea of silver or rhodium having much effect unless the entire arm is wired the same way. Kind of seems like a 4" pipe connected to a 2" one. The 2" controls the flow rate. That being said, I'll probably try switching the Cardas leads to the HS-4 if I haven't bent a cantilever by that point.

Comments? Advice? Similar experiences?
nandric's avatar
nandric
3,263 posts
 

Well despite all troubles and irritation I still prefer removable headshells. The reasons are many carts and the ''endless'' time

needed to mount a cart on an fast headshell. Alas the situation

is the same as before in the sense of the same annoyance. One

can't chose in this sense between those damn clips or those

damn headshells. I don't believe that attribute ''the best'' can

be used for any headshell but the same can be recommended as

before. Sumiko (alias Jelco HS 25; etc. ) because of price/

qulity relataion, Orsonic 101 ( the heavy kind), Clearaudio titanium

and aluminum and (some) of those AT with screw threads at the

under side. Those must have the ''movable 4 pin connector'' in

order to adjust stylus distance. No such choice is, alas, available

for the clips. All except Clearaudio are hopeless . There are

two kinds:  2mm and 1,5 mm but they never fit. Besides they break

easily. This is more dramatic by fast headshells of course. For my

best carts I use Clearaudio clips and solder them on my own silver

Litz wire. For the other I use Sumiko with its own headshell wire.

Not super but well decente.

2channel8
634 posts
 
Thanks for re-joining, @nandric. Your expertise is always appreciated. Are your tonearms wired with silver? What do you mean by "fast headshells"?
nandric's avatar
nandric
3,263 posts
 

@2channel 8, With ''fast headshell'' I mean not removable kind.

Some of my tonearms are with silver some wit copper wire. I own

two FR-64 with either , Reed 3P with silver and Sumiko 800 with

copper wire. The curious thing is that the most seem to prefer copper

wire by cartridges but not by tonearms and phono-cables.

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