Grado Labs Prestige Black2 phono cartridge coming to me for review. List price, $75.00.

Are styli still supported? The G1 and G2 I liked in the day!

 

The only Grado cart I ever owned was brand new and mounted on a new Music Hall TT. Unfortunately, it had a severe case of the "Grado Dance". It was pretty frustrating and the dealer made good on it. I was disappointed but would be willing to try out this new cart especially given the price.

 

Narrowed down my choice for next cart between this and the Nagaoka MP-110. Will be interested to hear the review... any thoughts?

 

The only legacy styli still available are for some of the Signature models (8MZ, MCZ, etc.), but any of the currently available styli will work.

 

The "Grado Dance" is indicative of a problem further upstream, either a compliance mismatch or issues with the bearings.

The only time I ever saw the "Grado Dance" in person was when I first installed a Grado on my vintage Grado tonearm shortly after getting it. After the arm was taken apart and the bearings were cleaned and polished (there were decades' worth of crud), my Grado carts track extremely well on that old arm!

 

I've never seen that or any other cartridge "dance", yet I continue to hear it repeated by those who haven't either...
-Bill

 

I guess you had to be there. I bought the Grado cart and it was dealer-mounted and set up on my new Music Hall MMF5 (circa 2007) and when I brought it home, one of the first LPs I played caused the needle/cart/tonearm to twitch and wobble from left to right. Fun to watch, but not fun to own. Gave it back to dealer, paid to upgrade to the MMF-7 and mounted a Denon MC cart. No more problems.

 

I have. And it can be easily demonstrated. Put a Grado P mount on a Technics P Mount arm. It's a disaster. The whole cartridge body shimmys and shakes.

 

Doesn't happen on my Technics SL-QD33.

 

Hmm. The exact table I saw it on with a Grado Silver.

 

I suspect the bearings are worn or dirty.

 

Could be. Mine is NOS.

 

I only ever tried one Grado and didn't even get that far, because on the AR turntable I had at the time it hummed like it forgot the words. Is this a problem with mid-level Regas?

 

Regas all hum with Grados due to the lack of shielding on Grado bodies- Joe Grado said the shielding changed the sound. Also to consider is the location of the Rega motor- under the platter. The closer the arm gets to the label, the louder the hum. 33 is noticeable. 45 is really bad.

 

Thanks, guess I'm still out for them, then. Too bad, I'd like to support an American manufacturer.

 

Soundsmith? They are shielded. I saw some rebuilt Otellos for $299.

 

Steve- Very cool you are reviewing both ends of the Grado spectrum, looking forward to what you have to say.

 

I have owned a couple of Grado cartridges over the years (including a Gold). Loved the sound, but what always got to me was the inner groove distortion, even when aligned as best as possible. Hopefully the new series of Grado tracks better.

 

American products cost more than many others. You really have to get above the Sonata level to hear what their better cartridges, ie their capabilities are. That means $800 + in many cases, but those carts are excellent. Yeah, they make more affordable cartridges and they get many things right at very affordable price points, but you have to pony-up for one of their better cartridges to understand why there are people paying more money for them. You can't look at their $60 cartridge and then condemn them as a company and suggest that paying $600 would be nuts. Not saying that that is what you were saying, but I have heard many people say that they had "given up" or "eliminated from consideration" all of the products based upon rumor even, or listening to a single sample that was less than $100. That's unfortunately how many audiophiles tend to operate, if their comments on numerous forums are any indication.
-Bill

 

They sure do. That doesn't mean Japanese or Dutch manufacturing is cheap either. The bigger companies like have better economies of scale and can offer better pricing to the consumer.

 

Thanks for that picture (video)! I can finally kind'a see what the Grado line array speakers look like now. Joe told me that he had designed something like that years ago (using headphone transducers). But, he didn't have any pictures with him. This was back when the Grado headphones were first introduced. Nice to get a look.

 

Here's a better view...

 

Yes, some of them do. Others are smaller still. Dynavector in Tokyo Japan for instance, is smaller than Grado. Their most affordable cartridge is priced at $650. Still, they make great products and are well loved the world over.
-Bill.

 

Well, you are correct, that's not what I was saying at all. Believe me, I did like many things about the cheaper Grado cartridges I have had. If I were to spend $600 on a cartridge, Grado would be on my short list simply because of my good experience with their cheaper line.

 

Really love my platinum 2. Had the black, red, ref platinum 1 and reference ref 1 over the years. Off and on during this time (25 years) I'd buy/try similarly priced competitors. None stuck, accept possibly as a backup. I was thinking about getting the black2 as a backup, but I'm going to go through the same routine again with a competitor to the platinum2.