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What's with the bad rap about Grado cartridges?
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patientot View Drop Down
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Points: 1778 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote patientot Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05 May 2019 at 12:19am
Originally posted by Lucabeer Lucabeer wrote:

Originally posted by patientot patientot wrote:

Those later R.E.M. albums are probably quite compressed I'm guessing. I don't have that one, but I'd guess it could be a challenge for many carts. 


In truth, the last two R.E.M. albums sound awful on CD and slightly more tolerable on vinyl (regardless of the cartridge). Big smile

Yeah, kinda what I figured. I don't have most of the later stuff. I think the latest album I have is New Adventures on CD. I do have Chronic Town and the first 5 albums on old IRS vinyl as well as CD. All those sound pretty nice. 
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Lucabeer View Drop Down
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Points: 719 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Lucabeer Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05 May 2019 at 9:40am
With some recordings, the character of the Grado is particularly evident...

Playing the first album by Dire Straits... Usually it's Mark Knopfler's guitar that grabs my whole attention (well, and Pick Withers' drumming). With the Grado, for the first time John Illsey's bass is so much more prominent: on "Sultans", its springy and bouncy character stands so much more than I am used to.

Interesting, although it takes a while getting used to.
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Aussie Mick View Drop Down
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Points: 1091 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Aussie Mick Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05 May 2019 at 11:48am
I’m glad you’re trying it and making up your own mind. So much negativity online! I think that if someone reads something negative they can respond just as negatively, just to be a part of it. They can think that their own opinion is more informed and valuable than anyone else’s! 
Excellent to read your thoughts on what you’re hearing, too.
Mick.
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Lucabeer View Drop Down
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Sure, that's the whole purpose: to judge with one's ears instead of repeating urban myths.

Now playing Madonna "Ray of light": and again, the cartridge is playing a weird trick. Madonna's voice stands out on a tapestry of pulsating, velvety, inky, throbbing beats. With other cartridges, it's William Orbit's electronic trickery that picks up the stage. Not with the Grado: definitely a more laid-back presentation, more "chill-out", less "spaced-out", bordering on "thick".

I don't know which approach correctly renders the intention of producer and mixer: I suspect that this Grado "interpretation" is NOT faithful at all. But as a change of pace it's very intriguing. And it's very un-CD-like.




Edited by Lucabeer - 05 May 2019 at 1:52pm
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patientot View Drop Down
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Originally posted by Lucabeer Lucabeer wrote:

Sure, that's the whole purpose: to judge with one's ears instead of repeating urban myths.

Now playing Madonna "Ray of light": and again, the cartridge is playing a weird trick. Madonna's voice stands out on a tapestry of pulsating, velvety, inky, throbbing beats. With other cartridges, it's William Orbit's electronic trickery that picks up the stage. Not with the Grado: definitely a more laid-back presentation, more "chill-out", less "spaced-out", bordering on "thick".

I don't know which approach correctly renders the intention of producer and mixer: I suspect that this Grado "interpretation" is NOT faithful at all. But as a change of pace it's very intriguing. And it's very un-CD-like.



Very interesting again. Not faithful sounds about right. The FR graphs I have seen of Grado cartridges often show a pronounced dip in the upper midrange. 

Here is Miller Audio Research's FR vs. Separation graph for the Gold 1. No idea if the current "Gold 2" is similar or completely different. 
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Lucabeer View Drop Down
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Very interesting graphs! Grado is very shady/reserved about publishing technical data, so external measurements come in handy.

One other thing I noticed is that NO WAY the Gold 2 is outputting the stated 5 mV: it definitely sounds much lower than that, I would say more around 2.5/3 mV like the Nagaoka MP-500. I have to turn the volume very high to reach the same level of the AT 440 MLa.

And googling around I see many complaints about this: many people saying that it has a very low output compared to other cartridges stated at the same 5 mV.

And that's why I would really like my Reflex M to have a variable gain (something like 46-48 dB).
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patientot View Drop Down
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Originally posted by Lucabeer Lucabeer wrote:

Very interesting graphs! Grado is very shady/reserved about publishing technical data, so external measurements come in handy.

One other thing I noticed is that NO WAY the Gold 2 is outputting the stated 5 mV: it definitely sounds much lower than that, I would say more around 2.5/3 mV like the Nagaoka MP-500. I have to turn the volume very high to reach the same level of the AT 440 MLa.

And googling around I see many complaints about this: many people saying that it has a very low output compared to other cartridges stated at the same 5 mV.

And that's why I would really like my Reflex M to have a variable gain (something like 46-48 dB).

RE: the output, I did not know that. I haven't had a Grado in my personal system so I can't comment on that aspect too much but here is what MAR had to say about in their 2013 test of the Gold 1.

Left channel output 1kHz at 5cm/sec was 2.61mV while the right channel was 2.78mV. 

Perhaps Grado is calculating the output differently than everyone else but their spec of 5mV would seem to be quite a bit off from this measurement. I have heard that their cartridges use more handmade processes than some of the big companies, so perhaps that plays into it and there is greater variation from batch to batch as well. 

RE: gain on the Reflex, I do have a Stanton cartridge that is lower in output than my other cartridges but I have not run into the problem of needing more gain. I do turn the volume up a little more on my integrated amp when using that cartridge, but I can live with this. 

Before I had the Reflex I had a different brand/model of phono preamp that had switchable gain as a feature. I did experiment with adding more gain to the Stanton by using a 46dB setting. I found that while this gain setting gave me extra "punch" on some records it also added distortion on others (probably because some records are cut hotter than others) and that overall I preferred the lower gain setting.


Edited by patientot - 06 May 2019 at 1:16pm
SL-1200 MK7 (modified) + Reflex M + PSU-1 used with AT150-40ML, AT VM610 MONO, AT VM95ML, Stanton 680mkII + Ogura, and Shure M35X cartridges.
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