Company Addresses:
Adcom, 11 Elkins Rd., East Brunswick, N.J. 08816.
Grado Labs, 4614 Seventh Ave., Brooklyn, N.Y. 11220.
Talisman, c/o Sumiko, P.O. Box 5046, Berkeley, Cal. 94705.
Garrott Decca, c/o Analogue Imports, P.O. Box 780151, Dallas, Tex. 75378.
Decca Super Gold, c/o Rocelco, 24 Viceroy Rd., Unit 1, Concord, Ont., Canada L4K 2L9.
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Any choice of phono cartridge is very much a matter of personal taste. A cartridge can measure almost perfectly and never acquire any real popularity among audiophiles. Conversely, a cartridge can have only mediocre tracking, or a sharp rise in the upper octave, and still be a cult item for years. You can get a very good cartridge--such as the Grado GTE + 1 for less than $20, or you can get an excellent cartridge for $3,500 and find it suits your taste enough to be worth the cost. You can also pay well over $1,000 and get nothing more than a reviewer's "pet of the month," with a sound character that does not match your taste or system.
Well, here are several of my "pets of the month." I have to fall back on my taste as the reason for selecting them out of the hundred or so good cartridges on the market-which means you should listen to them before buying on my say-so. I did, however, make my selections after listening to about 30 cartridges, as part of a broad survey of moderate to high-output models.
I also picked these cartridges with a deliberate criterion in mind for each: First, I wanted a cartridge that would approach the sound of a master tape. Second, I wanted one that was an affordable "best buy" yet still clearly qualified as a high-end product. Third, I wanted a high-output moving-coil cartridge that would have all the merits of the best low-output moving-coil models. Finally, I wanted a cartridge so exotic that any reader of Audio could partake of the esoteric heights of the high end.
Adcom XC-MR II
Let me begin with my candidate for a cartridge with master-tape sound. This is the XC-MR II, retailing for $325, one of a series of new Adcom cartridges. I've had the opportunity to listen to all of the new Adcoms and to try them out on a wide range of test records. All have extremely smooth, flat frequency response and exceptional separation. This level of separation, incidentally, requires careful attention to speaker placement. If you don't position your speakers to get a smooth spread of imaging from left to right, a cartridge with outstanding upper-octave separation will tend to produce a "hole in the middle" or "dual mono" effect, particularly in the higher frequencies where other cartridges tend to blend the image.
The XC-MR II is not romantic and does not sound like a conventional moving coil. There is no rising high end to emphasize the imaging or high-frequency detail. There is no special exaggeration or romance to the mid range or bass, and no feeling that the music is especially dynamic. There is no tendency to move the image for ward or put the performance in your lap, nor any extension of sound to the right or left of the speakers, nor any illusion of holographic depth-all of which you can get with some of the more romantic moving coils. The sound really is very much like a clean 15-ips tape. In fact, some brief comparisons involving my small stock of records for which I also own dubs of the master tapes indicated that the Ad- corn XC-MR II does an excellent job of reproducing what was recorded on the original tape.
The XC-MR II also proved relatively tonearm and electronics tolerant. It is a very good to excellent tracker and will work with any medium-mass tonearm I know of. The MicroRidge stylus on the XC-MR II also seemed better able to recover musically natural detail than the Adcoms with the van den Hul stylus, and I preferred the natural warmth of the midrange on this metal-cantilever cartridge to the added detail and illusion of speed on its more expensive, jeweled-cantilever version.
The lack of a high-end rise also makes the XC-MR II compatible with most mid-fi electronics, while its high output eliminates the need to use the often grainy and hard high-gain stages of such components. At the same time, the Adcom provides sufficient sound quality to take advantage of top-quality gear like the Audio Research SP10 preamp. The smooth, natural response
.also makes the Adcom a good match for speakers with a fast upper-octave response and lots of detail, such as those from SPICA, Thiel and Quad, whose sound can become wearing when used with cartridges having up per-octave peaks.
The Argent MC-500HR Ruby and AudioQuest T-7 (this last is now discontinued) are good competition for the XC-MR II, and well worth auditioning. However, I still would give the Ad com the edge in this particular sound category. The competition is either a little leaner (albeit with more impression of life) or less extended and de tailed. The Adcom XC-MR II provides an outstanding example of neutral sound characteristics. It takes extended listening to realize how good a job it does, but I keep coming back to it when I want to hear exactly what is on a record.
Grado Signature 8MR
My selection of a "best-buy" cartridge that will give you the smoothness of the best moving magnet with the detail and excitement of the best moving coil is the Grado Signature 8MR, a moving-iron model. I have had a long and friendly debate with Joe Grado over the amount of upper-octave information on his Signature series. He has always explained to me exactly why his most recent design was right, and later has gone off and improved it.
Well, the Signature 8MR still has a sound balance that is more mid-hall than front row, but it competes directly with the most expensive moving coils in terms of overall sound quality. The treble, slightly soft by the standards of most competing moving coils, extends fully into the upper octaves and has excellent resolving power without a trace of grain or hardness. The mid range has always been the strong point of the Grado line, and on the Signature 8MR it has all the traditional sweetness of the best Grados-along with much more air, harmonic detail, and ability to resolve the finer details of imaging. The bass goes very deep, but it is better controlled than on any previous Grado. The bass is also more natural than any moving-magnet cartridge I have yet heard.
Whether the Grado is accurate or romanticizes the sound is an issue that I could debate endlessly, but the Signature 8MR does have a very special character. It extracts detailed information in a musically natural way, from the lowest level passages to the most dynamic. Unlike moving coils, which tend to provide more low-level detail in the upper octaves than in the midrange, the Grado provides full detail through out the midrange, with no trace of up per-midrange hardness or resonance. This makes the Grado exceptionally compatible with virtually any electronics and speaker.
The Grado is, however, somewhat less tonearm tolerant. It does best with a low to medium-mass arm (the new Grado arm is ideal), and with a non-resonant headshell and the special mounting bracket supplied. Unlike previous Grado cartridges, the Signature 8MR will not provide its very best sound unless careful attention is paid to azimuth and to what is variously called stylus rake or vertical tracking angle (SRA/VTA). The cartridge also does not work well if the turntable is subject to floor movement or vibration-but this is true of virtually every cartridge.
As is the case with all cartridges, you should listen to the Grado Signature 8MR to see if its sound is the sound you prefer. You should also pay special attention to the upper octaves and the apparent sound staging, which provide a perspective which is musically natural yet different from that of any other cartridge I can think of. To my ears, however, the Signature 8MR is probably the best buy in high-end audio. I admit that a $200 list price is not cheap, but it is affordable. Further, while any more expensive cartridge will provide a sound different from that of the Signature 8MR, it will not be a definitively better one. This is true, incidentally, even of the $400 Signature 10MR, which offers significantly more detail, sweetness and imaging, but is essentially a purist's 8MR. Tell your accountant that you didn't really spend $200 or $400, you just saved several thousand dollars that you could have spent on the most expensive cartridge.
Talisman Alchemist IIIS
Opinion differs as to just how much you still have to pay for the kind of gain needed for a moving-coil cartridge. The conrad-johnson and Zeligman tube head amps and Audio Research SP10 preamp allow you to get awfully close to a neutral step-up device with tubes. The Krell, Klyne, and Spectral preamps and Klyne head amp allow you to do the same thing with transistors. None of these items are cheap, however, and most of the world can benefit from higher gain in the cartridge as a substitute for a high-gain device or stage that hardens and slightly veils or colors the sound.
For a mere $425, the Talisman Alchemist IIIS is a high-output, moving-coil cartridge that comes very close to having all the merits of the best low-output moving coils. It has the live, forward sound of the best moving coils, plus a great deal of dynamic impact and life, and a large and exciting sound stage. It also has good, stable imaging, although less natural and stable than the Grado or Adcom.
The Talisman also exhibits the apparent speed or attack of the better moving coils, from the bass to the up per octaves. It is perhaps not as confident a tracker in the top octaves as the very best low-output moving coils such as the Audio Note 1-0 Type II or Argent Diamond. Such competition, however, is close to three times as costly. The sonic value of this apparent speed or attack, incidentally, is likely to deter mine how much you like the cartridge.
It is what makes the Alchemist out standing in comparison with otherwise good, high-output competitors like the van den Hul Type III (which I reviewed for the July 1984 issue). You should audition it on recordings of top-grade solo guitar, percussion, and small string groups to hear the effect.
Bass is very good, although not out standing. The midrange is flat and lacks the warmth of most Koetsus or Kisekis; it does, however, avoid the slight leanness typical of the Argents and most AudioQuests. All cartridges differ in timbre in the midrange regard less of how they measure, so this is a choice you will have to make by ear.
You also should listen to the treble. The Talisman has a rising high end that goes up from about 7 kHz and hits 4 dB before vanishing into the distance. This rise will be smooth and sweet if you mount the cartridge firmly to the headshell with the Allen-head screws provided with the cartridge, and if you pay attention to SRA/VTA so that the arm slopes down about 3° to 5° towards the tonearm pivot. The treble does, however, bring the sound for ward; the Alchemist is very much a front-of-the-house cartridge in terms of concert-hall position. This means you need electronics that are smooth and of high quality, as well as speakers whose tweeters do not have hot spots and which do not unusually over-emphasize the upper octaves at the expense of overall balance. Martin Colloms, of the British magazine Hi-Fi News & Record Review, recommends loading the Alchemist down with a 0.15- to 0.22-µF capacitor to tame the high end. I did not find this necessary and felt it made the top octaves a bit slow. I suggest you listen to your particular sample before you buy.
Garrott Decca and Decca Super Gold
Now let me close with my selection for audio exotica. The Decca cartridge has long been a favorite of cultists, although it scarcely has established a reputation for reliability or ease of operation. While various Deccas have come and gone, all have had a very fragile cartridge body and could be rendered useless by a slight back wards pressure on the stylus. The quality control of past Deccas has generally been poor and their tracking mediocre, and they have only really worked well with tonearms with special mounting brackets and damped pivots. At the same time, past Deccas have provided extraordinary dynamics, a great deal of apparent detail, strong and powerful bass, and an exceptionally live upper end.
---- Decca Super Gold
Well, you now have two greatly improved versions to chose from and a number of ways to buy them. With luck and care, you can outpoint your friends on sheer exotica, get excellent sound, and stay halfway solvent.
Your two options are to buy a Decca Super Gold, which sells for $450 in the U.S., or a Garrott Decca, which sells for about $300 in the U.K. and a brutal $950 in the U.S. Both have roughly the same merits. The tracking performance has improved to good-even at 2 grams-although tonearm compatibility is still uncertain. My trials of five different samples (two of the Garrott and three of the Super Gold) indicate that quality control is also much improved, although none measured exactly the same on separation or frequency response, and the Garrotts both had less separation than any of the three Super Golds.
As for the sound, it has improved to the point where the two versions of the Decca can sound as exciting as any cartridge I have ever heard. The Decca Super Gold and Garrott Decca may or may not be accurate, but they bring incredible life to music. They make records sound exciting and dynamic to an extent no other cartridge can touch.
I cannot easily describe the difference, but the Deccas have a magic in terms of musical vibrancy, throughout their entire frequency range and regardless of the loudness of the pas sage, that may make you forget all technical issues and just listen to the music. Strings, for example, have all the life of the best moving coils without the occasional touches of hardness.
Percussion seems fast to the point of being slightly more exciting than in live performance. Musical changes and complex passages seem to be clear in places where they would blur together with many other cartridges.
As for the differences between the Super Gold and the Garrott, the Super Gold provides a slightly stronger and more detailed set of upper octaves. It is slightly more forward than the Garrott and can sound a bit harder de pending on setup. The Garrott can be exceptionally smooth and un-fatiguing.
These differences will be most apparent on speakers with ribbon or electro static drivers, however, and may not be apparent to many listeners using cone speakers with a slightly rolled off high end. I would vote for the Decca Super Gold if you feel your audio sys tem needs more upper-octave information, and for the Garrott Decca if you want smoothness.
I'd also recommend you consider the Super Gold versus the Decca Garrott on a dollar basis. The Super Gold is imported into North America for $450 (and is available from Rocelco). This isn't cheap, but it's fairly reasonable given today's cartridge prices and markups. It certainly is no inspiration to buy the Super Gold from Britain to save the difference.
The Garrott is a totally different story.
When I first got involved with these two new versions of the Decca, I was not aware there was a U.S. importer. I bought my Garrott in England for £347 (about $410 at the time) from The Parabolic Stylus Company ( P.O. Box 38, Torquay, TOI 1BW, England; the direct-dial phone number from the U.S. is 011-44-803-26791). This price included a special, heavy metal bracket sold only by the British distributor that al lowed the cartridge to mount securely and perform well in arms like the Zeta and Alphason. Parabolic Stylus sold the Garrott with a guarantee of a full refund if I did not fall in love with the sound. The whole transaction took about two weeks.
I have since learned that a U.S. importer sells the Decca Garrott through selected dealers for $950, without the mounting bracket or the guarantee. I find this more than a bit difficult to take.
I think even $450 is a bit pricey for any version of the Decca, given its exceptional setup requirements and vulnerability, and given the fact that the regular Decca Golds and Maroons now discount in the U.K. for well under $100.
Granted, Garrott individually rebuilds Decca cartridges by hand in Australia, and tips them with a special micro-scanner stylus (a four-facet parabolic stylus). But even $300 seems a pretty stiff markup for this kind of work.
Regardless of what you pay, the new Deccas will still require a complex set up ritual. First, you'll need a medium to high-mass tonearm with a flat head-shell or cartridge-mounting surface.
The Premier MMT (Improved) with damping works well, as does the new Grado. Other arms may need a bit of added mass at the headshell.
You will have to work with an absurd plastic mounting jig with only three out put prongs, because the Decca was originally designed for a special arm that is no longer being made. This means wiring both tonearm or head-shell grounds together. If you do not buy the mounting bracket from Parabolic Stylus, you will probably need to put a thin layer of plastic clay under the cartridge and glue it into another plastic mounting device that holds it in the headshell. (If you don't, it can easily fall out-and goodbye, cartridge.) If you do buy the bracket, you will need to be very careful not to tighten it too much, because the Decca's thin plastic body can shift.
All of the Decca cartridges, apparently, invert absolute phase. Because of their three-wire output, you cannot correct for this by reversing the normal polarity of the leads in the headshell.
Therefore, unless your system includes a phase-inverting switch, you must re verse the normal polarity of each speaker's leads if you wish to maintain correct phasing. This will, however, throw every other input to your system out of phase, and the sonic benefits are a bit uncertain with most material.
You will need to spend considerable time adjusting SRA/VTA until the sound "locks in" just right. In the Decca's case, this is normally with the arm sloping slightly down from the pivot.
You will have to track at 2 grams with the Super Gold; with the Garrott Decca, you should track at precisely the weight recommended for your sample, since each is specially adjusted for its optimal compliance. Further, you may have to load down to 12 to 25 kilohms.
(Analogue Imports supplies 15-kilOhm metal resistors for this.) I did not think this was particularly necessary, and found the bass to be less satisfactory when I tried it, but virtually everyone else recommends doing so.
Most important of all, you must then follow an extremely careful purification ritual. Never use a conventional electric or hard-brush stylus cleaner. You must use a soft brush like the one in the Signet, Audio-Technica and LAST record cleaners, or use STYLAST. You must always be careful to brush back to front, and to keep the cartridge far away from dirt and iron filings. If you violate these rules, the stylus will lose its compliance and treat your records with all the style and grace of the aver age chisel.
After all of these rituals, neither the Decca Super Gold nor the Decca Garrott will be uncolored. There is a slight rise in the bass, and the highs rise by about 4 dB from 4 to 20 kHz. Channel balance is so-so. The Garrotts had only moderate separation right out of the box, regardless of whether I used the British importer's clamp or not. I also cannot promise you an easy life with the new Deccas, or that they will give you the world's absolute best high out put for all these exotic rituals. The other cartridges I've singled out all compete directly with the improved Deccas and have their own particular sound characters. And yet, the new Deccas can be especially musical and exciting.
To sum up, I'm in no better position to select one of these cartridges for you than I would be to pick "the best" wine, sports car, or mate (or whatever else may suit your fancy). The point of this review is that you can scale the cartridge heights of the high end in different ways to match your personal taste. You can even do this at a half way reasonable price, particularly if you do not already own a top-ranking pre-preamplifier. The rest is up to you.
-Anthony H. Cordesman
(Audio magazine, Feb. 1986)
Also see:
ADCOM Crosscoil XC/VAN DEN HUL Moving-Coil Phono Cartridge (Equip. Profile, Jan. 1982)
Decca London International Tonearm & Mk VI Gold Elliptical Phono Cartridge (Aug. 1979)
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