Tír Na HiFi

Hey all,


You can see from the ho ho thread I snagged a new denon deck with a nice aT1009 arm and an older B&O MMC6000 cart. When I first started playing the deck, the sound was not bad, but a bit recessed, lacking detail maybe. I was putting this down to the cart being the age it is etc etc etc. Having said that this cart seems very highly regarded.

Anyway, I threw 10 or 11 sides of LPs at it yesterday/last night. The sound has definitely cleared up considerably since then. Lots more detail and resonance - improved soundstage and vocal positioning. What I'm wondering - is this normal? I haven't been able to view the stylus (yet) so I can't estimate wear - it all looks very clean etc. but I was thinking that maybe it just needed a run out to loosen back up again. I should add I thought there was a bit of channel imbalance when I first started playing it, but that went very quickly.

Anyone ever experienced this?

No, but I tend to leave carts in place these days! That swapping carts in and out is a young man's game.
It does seem entirely plausible that a cart unused for years would need to loosen a bit though.

What about dust/dirt Fran; perhaps it could do with a bit of a clean as it appears to have been lying up for some time?

Fran - Like Ivor I tend to leave my cartridge in place, so not experienced in this.

However, given the inductive mechanism in an MC or MM cartridge you could argue that (particularly) a coil that has been sitting for some time would loose a little of its flexibility and take time to regain it's elasticity.
The coils are so fine that they could regain sensitivity and improve resolution after a few plays.

However since yours is an MM I would think this factor would be less but yet still present as the mechanisms loosen ups.

That's a purely theoretical view.
Conor

Good points all...

I wondered if it might be the rubber mounting for the cantilever loosening a bit.... given that it had sat unused for so long. The coil assembly etc is very "sealed" - not at all open frame the way more modern carts are so I can't do any cleaning.Most B&O carts were in their own proprietary P mount system - one reason why they are so hard to find now. This one is the regular mount though:




Thats the rubber mount just at the end of the cantilever:



This is really the only moving part.

the polish forum member i cant remember his user name he is knoledgable about record players his name maybe dariuz anyway he used these cartridges and may have some input to help

Dariusz goes by Darek on the forum, FYI.