Fed up with Grado cartridges

Jim, you prefer when companies deliberately cripple a model in order to charge less?

 

Yes, for a bang-for-the-buck cartridge, you can't beat a Shure M91ED with the $12 EVG(Jico) elliptical found on eBay.

That said, my Grado Black/8MZ combo is better to me on my system.

 

Tried on two tonearms. One was a Linn Akito 2b on a reasonably well speced LP12. The other a VPI Classic.

Sounded pretty much the same on both.

I tend to like an uncolored cart. I also dislike Rega carts, fwiw.

 

Hmm, something was not right. It's one thing not to like the Grado sound, but it should not have sound bloated if everything was optimized.

Oh well, sometimes ya gotta move on, right?

 

Let's consider that our definitions of bloated might differ. I still have it, and one day I may yet try again. Grado certainly has its fans, I'm just not one of them.

 

Not a Grado cartridge fan. I owned one once, on an AR turntable. The cartridge was quite musical but, as you got closer to the inner grooves, it hummed noticeably and had fairly high inner groove distortion. No other cartridge ever hummed on that table. Why doesn't Grado adequately shield their cartridges?

 

I am thinking about replacing my Grado Prestige Gold, a cartridge that was installed on my DUAL CS-750 over ten years ago but has not gotten much play time until recently, i.e. started to revisit my LP collection only recently. How about Rega Bias 2 or some Ortofon cartridge?

 

Or how about a $100 Grado 8MZ stylus. It will send your Gold to a whole new level.

 

Im not so SHURE about that

 

Grado does much better at headphones than phono cartridges.

 

That may be true of their budget range - the upper levels are really good, though, and the Statement1 is a great-sounding cartridge. I don't have the means for a $3000+ cartridge, but it sounds wonderful.

 

So the Grado 8MZ stylus is actually better than the designated replacement stylus for the Prestige Gold? Is it a JICO stylus?

 

The 8MZ is much better than the Prestige styli, and no they're not a Jico, they're built by Grado. If you Google it you'll find tons of info on the 8MZ.

 

Are there any meaningful differences between the Grado Prestige Gold and Grado Prestige Gold 1? I actually have the Prestige Gold. Will the 8MZ actually with Prestige Gold?

 

It will work fine.

 

Thanks for your suggestion ...

 

Ortofon.

 

Back in my college days I used Grado Blacks ($25 back then!) with my Thorens TD-166. Never had hum or mistracking issues at all. I've moved on since then but for a budget model I never was disappointed.

These days I would probably recommend a Nagaoka MP-110 or an Ortofon 2M Red. A little more money but apparently more compatible over a wide range of tonearms.

 

Back in the early 2000's, I installed the Grado Prestige Gold on my DUAL CS-750 and immediately noticed the hum. I emailed Grado about the problem and never received a reply from them. To this day, that cartridge is the ONLY Grado product I have ever owned. I certainly will not buy any Grado headphones ...

 

Avoid GRADO carts like the plague

Analogman

 

When did Grado cartridge start getting this bad?

 

Grado carts aren't shielded from noise from direct drive motors like most other cartridges are. Unless you have something like a glass mat instead of a rubber turntable mat you either have to live with it or get a different cartridge which is what I did.

I think it really sucks they wouldn't answer a simple email.

 

Agree with Grado hum problem. I also had a Prestige Gold precursor, the Z1+, and it hummed like the dickens on my Vpi HW-19 jr/Rega Rb300 combo. Bought extra metal shielding to try to tame it but never could. The cart seemed very sensitive to motor noise (the hum was always apparent but got louder as tonearm got closer to spindle).

Really a shame because I really liked the sound - but the hum drove me NUTS!

 

Yeah, I hear you. It was terrible customer service. That is why I will never buy the Grado headphones.

My DUAL CS-750 is a belt-drive turntable.

 

Try this!