I was excited about this cartridge to replace my AT-440MLa with a broken cantilever. Except for a slight brightness, I was happy with the sound of the 440 and its tracking. Well I installed the VM540 today and was severely disappointed. It sounded quite a bit brighter than my old cartridge and bass-shy as well. It's all packed up and ready to return to Amazon.
Mine was too bright as well, but broke in and sounds severely great now. You expect your cartridges to sound great out of the box? You didn't tinker with the settings? Seems a little premature to send back after less than a day....
Here's the result of a simple simulation I did using the source impedance of the VM540/740 cartridge and a simulated 47K load with varying load capacitance. Notice how sensitive this cartridge is to capacitance. From these plots, it appears somewhere between 100pF and 150pF is optimal. 200pF and above is no good at all.
The phono capacitance in my system is a little below 20opf (135pf for the cables, 46 for the outboard phono amp and who knows for the wiring from the tonearm to the VPI junction box to the phono jacks, so lets say total its all about 200pf. In my system with the VTA slightly tail down this cartridge is nowhere near bright. even if I swap in Morrow Ph7 4oo+pf or Blue Jeans interconnects LC1's. In my system I found that tail down makes it almost like the Shure M97XE with a Jico SAS, but with better resolution, midrange and separation. Just my experience M~
There must be something wrong with the cart or the setup. The 540 is in no way bright, or bass shy. My experience is that it plays what's there. But I guess there are no guarantees in this world.
Yes. Every other cartridge I've owned has sounded fine out of the box. The AT-440MLa certainly did. It was always a little bright but nowhere near the VM540ML. No bass either. I guess if the cartridge were cheaper, I might have tried it longer. but when I put on my SACD of Beggar's Banquet to compare with my DSD vinyl of the same mastering, I couldn't believe how much the highs were emphasized and the bass whomp was missing. The AT-440ML was a little brighter than the SACD but not nearly to that extent and the bass was there. When I pay over $300 Canadian for a phono cartridge, I expect it to perform great. I also tried My Beatles A Hard Day's Night solid state Parlophone stereo LP. On I'm Happy Just To Dance With You, every s was emphasized. Not distorted, just sss. Maybe it was the cartridge. I checked the setup twice - cartridge alignment, VTF. I made the sure the stylus was installed properly, making sure I heard a definite click when it was securely in place. I get that a new component might sound different. When I bought a new amplifier, I thought it sounded a bit thin, but not nearly as night and day as this cartridge. I think the amp sounds just dandy now, BTW. I was really looking forward to getting this cartridge after pretty well all rave reviews, especially since many of them said that the brightness of the AT 440 was gone. Instead, it sounded brighter. Agree about no guarantees. I'm glad that the posters here like the cartridge. Me, I will look for something else.
Do you know what capacitance you have in your cables to the RIAA preamplifier and the capacitance in the same? (If you do not know then what cable is between the TT and the RIAA/receiver and how long is it??)
No, I don't know the capacitance of the cables and as for my integrated amp I contacted Yamaha and they could not tell me the capacitance of the preamp in my integrated amp. The cables are probably about 3 feet. I experimented with different cable lengths, connecting to a Realistic external preamp I have when I wanted to tame the slight brightness of my At-440MLa but I didn't notice much difference in the sound.
I got mine after over 2 months in shipping from Japan. I thought that I had lost it.. I have not mounted it yet, when I am on vacation. But here is my unboxing of it: I am glad that I have prepared for its arrival by making a low capacitance wire that I installed in my hardwired TT. So with a RIAA that supposedly has 100 pF and with the cables I should be under 200 pF in total. I started a thread about that process: Why a wire is born?
Adam9, it's very strange that the 440MLa would sound good and the 540ML sound bright. Maybe you got a defective unit. The 440MLa is slightly more forgiving of high capacitance, but not much. The two cartridges have very similar source impedance. I run my VM740ML on a Technics 1200GR, 1.5 ft Bluejeans cable, to Mofi Studio with 100pF spec. I'd guess 150pF or so total. It sounds great, but I'd bet it would be very bright with higher capacitance.
But I think that different cartridges are mor or less sensitive to capacitance. Is it some unbranded cable or is it some specific brand and model?
I bought a VM740ML last year to replace my much loved 440mlb on my Technics sl-1700 MkII. I love the cart and think that for the Au$370 I paid for it, it was 100% worth it. BUT, I now keep thinking about upgrading to the 750 or 760. I just keep thinking that if I am getting such amazing sound from the 740, the 760 must be a big step up. A review I read of both certainly did say that the 760 was better at retrieving detail and sounded smoother and meatier overall, but they were incredibly impressed by how close the 540 was. Looking at ebay, it seems the cheapest on there would be around AU$720. I bought the 740 over the 540 for the better cart that suits the 550/560 but the problem is, the cart/stylus combo is cheaper than the stylus by over AU$100! I certainly have not been able to find it cheaper than the combo on ebay. Any thoughts on upgrading? Is it worth that much money or am I better off putting it into a better turntable? Prices are a joke these days, but I have eyed a couple of nice Denon and Pioneer tables that should be better than my SL-1700MKII. I also thought about buying a Pioneer SA-9800 instead. I am ONLY thinking about this stuff because my tax return should be in my bank soon.
This is very strange, and I wonder if there is a quality control issue going on. I also went from an AT440MLa to a VM540ML and I found the differences between the two sonically to be very subtle. On my setup, the VM540ML is definitely not brighter than the 440MLa, nor does it have less bass. If anything, I felt like the highs were a tad smoother (though not less bright) and the bass ever so slightly stronger than the 440MLa. But overall I found the two cartridges to sound very similar. Sounds like you've given up on it, but I personally would have considered an exchange first to make sure you didn't get a defective cartridge.
Just wanted to add, I'm not sure who claimed the VM540ML is less bright than the 440MLa, but I personally don't think that's the case. I do think the highs on the VM540ML seem a tad smoother, if that makes sense, but I don't think it's less bright. However, that smoother quality could potentially just be the difference between a brand new cart/stylus and an older one. Also, I've never found either cartridge to be excessively bright the way some people have, though it is a bit brighter in comparison to some other cartridges I've heard.
My capacitance is very possibly higher than yours. However my AT-440MLa sounded a little bright, but totally acceptable compared to the VM540ML, as I said before.
At 0:53 in your video I can see at the base in the packaging "Accessories contained within (excluding products with headshell")" So you got and show the brush and screwdriver and wires and screws and nuts - but someone buying the headshell version for $40 more gets no accessories, not even the brush.
No worries and thanks for looking, but I'm not surprised. It's difficult to get info about capacitance in my experience.
Great test model there. Unfortunately it will likely fall on deaf ears and blind eyes. IME there are people that simply don't want to attempt to understand how loading works and how it can affect the sound of a cartridge. Ostriches with heads in the sand...
If no info and you want to be sure, they can easily be measured with a capacitance meter that costs around $40. IIRC the stock RCA cables that Pioneer supply with the PLX-1000 and other TTs are too high capacitance for some carts. Someone here (don't remember who) measured them along with a bunch of other RCA cables.
A worn out 440mLa will sound dull. Maybe that's what the poster in question got used to. The 440mLa hasn't been made in a few years and was replaced with the "b" model which also hasn't been made in a couple of years. I would strongly suspect too many hours on that poster's stylus, which may have given it a dull sound. Defective carts from AT are possible but rare, especially with MM models. Like Ortofon and other makes the coils in the generator assembly are wound by machines...
I found in a thread this information of one that restored a PL-630: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/sruddys-pioneer-pl-630-restoration-thread.720918/page-3&ved=2ahUKEwi7xK7ZrbzjAhVllosKHdrMBv8QFjAAegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw0TJC8agZ5OrPxcyCcPHE74&cshid=1563381601506 So the OEM TT seams to have in total 180 pF. Plus we have to add the capacitance in the RIAA that is also is a unknown. But another hint in the text is that of the 180 pF. It is 155 pF of them that comes from the interconnects them self. And approximately 90 to 100 pF is possible to reduce with a appropriate interconnect change.
Mounted VM540ML today. First of I was surprised that AT make so strange fastening. Why do not make a nut that fit down at the cartridge so it stays at a appropriate slot. No now the nut is to big so it must go at the topside of the head shell. Making the head for the screwdriver must be reached under up.. why making it easy for us. The short screws that comes with the cartridge is way to short. I do not know if any can make use of them. Ugly is this. But another thing is when accessing the head it is little enjoying that there is no free space above the head. When the stylus is broader than the distance between the two bolts. Here is a shoot from the side and the lighter area where the diamond is is the spindle. So we know we are talking the photo more or less of the side of the cartridge. If we enlarge the photo above and we see the naked diamond and how it also is reflected on the record. We see that the SRA is more or less spot on ~92°. Also this is a photo while the record is being played! (Because if you take photos in stasis and adjust and then playing a record. Then the extra fiction and grove modulation will come in play and reduce the SRA) Maybe little bit to early to say anything about the sound..
Yeah the mounting arrangement leaves a lot to be desired. If memory serves me correctly, I used M2.5X.45X12mm hex head bolts with washers underneath the head of the bolts. After playing with the VTA I went back to the headshell being level and that seems to work best in my system. VTF is 1.995 M~
