Chinese catridges

[Fran]

I can't quite remember how many hours I had but I do remember thinking after a good few evenings listening I thought it settled out with a bit more smoothness in the top end. Maybe that equates to 30 hours or so - I know I'm being vague but I didn't really keep track of it.

Exactly which one did you go for again?

[hudo]

Exactly which one did you go for again?

Same as you, 2 ohms 0.3mv, since you did all the research on difference impendence/resistance versions:)
To be honest, quickly googled but didn't find info about impendence differences and which one is better, but model with the silver wire was maybe a bit too expensive, would rather go with boron cantilever for that price or maybe a bit more...

[hudo]

I can't quite remember how many hours I had but I do remember thinking after a good few evenings listening I thought it settled out with a bit more smoothness in the top end. Maybe that equates to 30 hours or so - I know I'm being vague but I didn't really keep track of it.

Exactly which one did you go for again?

Do you know what impedance setting you have? I had 10ohm on my preamp, and cartridge sounded a bit off, too much highs, cymbals would overpower and cover the rest of the spectrum, bit too much of upper mids/lower highs.
Returned back AT, and its much more balanced. Will return back MC and try different impedance settings.

[Fran]

I think I ended up around 200ohms or thereabouts.


BUT I have an update. About a week ago I mishandled the cart and I basically dropped it very hard on the deck, and it skittered down the edge of the platter... HARD. Anyway, long and short of it is that the diamond snapped off jagged, while the cantilever was undamaged. I can write this now, but I was raging with myself at the time!! I suppose at least it was this cart and not the benz.

Anyway I've sent it off to a guy to have it repaired. I will likely go for a boron cantilever with super-elliptical stylus. I expect to have it back in a month or so..... and I will update here on what happens. The cost of repair is about the same as a replacement, so I suppose I am now going to be at ~600e for a LOMC with boron cantilever and super-elliptical stylus. FYI, Zhige-audio would repair with options from 50-100e, plus postage both ways.

What have I learned? Don't be so cack handed near the arm!

[hudo]

Uf, i am stressed just from reading this. I broke (bend) cantilever few months ago on my AT, actually my toddler did it, and didn't want to pay for replacement, very hard to negotiate with children:)
At least you'll have fancy speced cartridge now.

Btw too much highs is usually when preamp impedance is too high, right? In my case it was at 10ohm, so very very low. Configuring it at higher value should in theory give even more highs, but think I just have to try it... (took me 1-2h to setup it up last time, bit lazy to go through whole adjustment again)

[Fran]

Yep - usually higher loading means more high frequency energy so tends to be a bit brighter in sound.... I think all you can do is try by ear - but only after you are 100% satisfied with cart alignment etc.

[hudo]

Preparing to install chi-fi MC again, but last time struggled with getting cartridge perfectly parallel (or perpendicular) to the lines on protractor, so got an idea to 3D print small tool that you put on cartridge and it makes much easier to see if its aligned to printed lines!
They usually suggest to tape graphite pencil lead, but that can break easily and its difficult to tape.
If somebody wants to 3d print it for their cartridge, just PM me with precise dimension (width) of your cartridge.

20250313_212139.jpg (25.86 KiB) Viewed 1415 times

[Diapason]

I love this idea! Of course, now you need to be sure the cantilever is square to the headshell... 😉

[hudo]

I see ASR did measurements of Ti105, just 6ohm version, and it does have peak at 10khz which would explain why it sounds a bit like old B&W speakers I had, lots of treble :) Installed it again today, was able to tame the highs a bit with proper setup, but compared to AT cartridge (or just playing the same album on streaming/DAC) its definitely not balanced...

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/foru ... est.60297/

ZG-Ti105S_6 Ohm_CA-TSR-1007.png (200 KiB) Viewed 1191 times

[Fran]

I didn't d any measurements.... but I didn't notice any peaky sound like the graph shows. I know mine had copper coils rather than silver but that shouldn't make that kind of difference?

I wonder if there was something else contributing to it in those measurements. In some of the pics he has removed the wood body, and in another he says he adjusted azimuth and got better channel separation, but I wonder could that have contributed to the peaky bit.

Interesting set of measurements though, and thought provoking. I flicked through a few of the carts measured and reported there in their database. There are a few with a peak, often a little after 10k - but then others don't show this peak. I wonder if there is something with resonance of the arm or headshell contributing. I must read around a bit more about this as this could really change the sound of the cart, once set up optimally in every other way.

Its a good find hudo, I didn't know those measurements were there.

EDIT - I've attached one for the AT-OC9XML - see there is a peak there at around 10k, but at half the height of the chinese one. DL103 seems to have it too in one of the 3 examples measured, but not the other 2x. Very interesting stuff.