Looking to upgrade from a goldring g800 on lenco gl75, suggestions please!

Alright, time for me to eat a bit of humble pie! Even though I really like the goldring g800 for 78s, I didn't think it was much good with lps. I was very wrong! it turns out that this cart sounds very clear and bright with orchestral recordings, which is what I want, it sounds in some ways better than my pro-ject debut carbon with the 2m blue, more high-end but not as much mids or bass, the pro-ject sounds a bit more crammed in...
Some piano passages distort with the g800. I've altered the tracking every which way and it gets better but doesn't go away. I'm just using the stock stylus that came with it, could this be why? the good old m44-7 with expert paratrace doesn't distort with the same configuration.
So, what I'm asking is what is the upgrade path from here? I want something similar to the g800, just a bit better, I'm not sure how to describe what I'm looking for other than a bit more depth. Should I upgrade the stylus or was there a good more high-end goldring cart?
I hope this makes sense!
I'm stuck with the stock gl75 arm as I have a lot of expencive stylie for those headshells...

 

Could be a worn stylus. What's the condition of it? New? Old? Unknown? The G800 is a pretty old cartridge. If this is a new, old stock needle, then maybe the suspension has hardened a bit.

 

The friend that gave me it is a hi-fi engineer and assured me the stylus is new. It sounds really good on, for example, the castanets of the famous new symphony orchestra's espagna! lp, much better than the pro-ject, but there's less over-all definition if that makes sense

 

As far as I know, the sharpest stylus you can get for it .3 x .7 elliptical, which will have lower resolution than a line stylus. If it's in fact new, and not NOS, then perhaps it is defective. Aftermarket needles are typically of a lower quality than OEM.

 

I love the sound of this cart other than the distortion on very particular peaces of music (few and far between) so I wonder if expert stylus company might make a new one, but I was wondering what would be a better cart.

 

'Better' is entirely subjective. If you like what you're hearing, safest bet would be to have Expert Stylus inspect it for a better stylus.

Although I have a G800, I've never heard it, so I'm in no position to offer any alternative.

Have you tried the Shure on the Lenco?

 

Yes and it's all bass and mids, not enough highs for my liking however I often use that for rock lps. Most of my albums are classical/orchestral.

 

Same here. Have you heard any of the Audio-Technica offerings? Pretty amazing for Classical, IMO. Clear, balanced spectrum; wide stage with instruments in their proper places. With Shure, I find the instruments are hard left and right, with the balance crowded in the middle. Great tracking, mind you. With A-T, if the record has a problem you'll know it, but tracking is not generally an issue.

 

No I haven't! Any particular carts I should look at for the lenco headshell?

 

Is it possible that you're just very used to a particularly bright sound and that this brightness is at the expense of mid-range, which is where all of the action really lives?

Recently, I auditioned a couple of digital cables to run from my Bluesound Vault 2 into my DAC. One sounded bright and the other sounded warm.

When I listened more closely, however, both of them were giving similar performance at high frequencies, but the bright sounding cable was actually deficient in the mid-range. It was therefore less successful, for instance, in communicating the emotions in the human voice.

So it wasn't that the warm-sounding cable was deficient in treble performance. Instead, it was that the bright sounding cable was deficient in mid-range performance.

Perhaps try to spend some time listening to a different, more balanced sound and allow your ears to adjust. Then go back to the G800 and be honest about how you feel.

I'm a fan of Goldring cartridges. My first cartridge was a G850, and my current one is a G1042. I'd never go back to the G850, however, because it's far too bright. I get all of the treble that I could ever need from the G1042, plus I also get that mid-range magic, which is where the feeling in music comes from.

 

Stick to medium mass/medium compliance on the Goldring/Lenco stock tonearm. I'd use conical and elliptical styli on it, as the arm is OK but lacks VTA/SRA adjustments to optimize performance with exotic tips. And I am saying this as a Lenco fanatic. An old Goldring G800 is heavenly in a GL-75 tonearm as an example, likewise the Shure M 44-7 and M 75 family save for the ED stylus another great period mate.

 

Interesting observations!
the expert paratrace does definitely pick up a lot of crackles that everything else just misses, this is in the shure m44-7.
Do you think, then, the expencive stylus rout is the wrong one for the g800? more testing last night and I'm really enjoying this cart! I didn't like it nearly so much on a Joni Mitchell record, though, it made the bad recording on clouds sound even worse than it already does and her voice had too much top end, but this is the fun for me or part of it!

 

I'm not sure what your budget is, but the VM95E is a good place to start. Don't let the low price fool you: It comes with an assortment of different stylii, from the basic bonded conical to a nude elliptical, all the way up to nude Shibata and microline, quality on par with the Paratrace. The basic E is a bonded elliptical. Goldring has a version using the same A-T generator, but in a different body and for a premium. No upgrade path for the needle, however.

Higher up the A-T you'll find the compliances becomes better suited to lighter arms. I don't know if they're suitable for the Lenco or not.

 

More testing the g800 with non-classical records, my wife and I both think this beats both my entire £400 pro-ject turntable and the shure m44 with expert paratrace into the ground! Then I listened to one of my favorites, Acardo playing Bruch violin concertos on Philips, I've never heard anything like it! the violin really sings. Kellie said the g800 sounds warmer and sweeter and I think that's accurate.
So what gives? I've had this for ages and now finally realising what a good cart it is, the distortion bothers me though. Do you think an eliptical would mostly fix that? it is only on two records I've noticed it. I actually wonder if, because of the sweeter sound I'm just noticing it more...

 

It might be the records......

 

They don't distort on the Debut Carbon though.

 

Good point.....

 

Eliptical stylus is on it's way, I wonder what that'll do for me, I must admit I'm extremely impressed with this cart, little bit of bass-lacking but it's such a nice stereo image if that makes sense,
I initially thought I might use this for rock lps and the debut carbon for classical music, it's now looking the other way round! Listening to
Beethoven*, Alfred Brendel - Piano Sonatas
Beautiful piano tone, on the debut it sounds kind of harsh, clinical, almost like a 1980s keyboard but this is something else entirely...

 

I can post audio comparisons if that would interest anybody. With the pro-ject ortofon combo things like tambourines are buried and kind of harsh sounding, the g800 seems to bring everything out! I can't believe I've had this for so long and not tried playing lps with it.
At this point it wouldn't take much for me to entirely ditch the pro-ject and get another gl75 to replace it with, with a retipped g800...

 

rite, a few updates and a lot of questions!
I now have an original g800E, a g800 super E more on that in a moment, and an aftermarket eliptical stylus.
A friend gave me an old rotel rp1500 with a Jelco arm, and here are some observations about it.
adc vlm (ii) came on it, sounds nice but not lush enough and some things sound sharp, great for rock and folk type stuff.
Conical g800 sings!
aftermarket eliptical is very very sharp but does as well on this tt as it does on the lenco. Orchestral stuff sounds great with it, everything vocal sucks.
original eliptical sounds terrible at 1.75 grams which is the maximum recommended, just about manages at a fair bit higher tracking weight!
the super E has exactly the same problem as the eliptical, it also feeds back! literally just like a microphone.
I think that arm is too light, period. the super E is mindblowing in the lenco arm. I can hardly believe just how good it is in fact, but it's a very rare thing, I got it from ebay and haven't seen another before or since, so once that stylus has had it that's the end of it and who knows how many hours it's had... the sound of the super E is utterly glorious and beats the 2m blue hands down, no distortion, nothing but lovely lush sounding music and I basicly want that so called classic lush bbc sound...

I have just been given a load of stuff, which include
an sme series 2 tonearm (don't think it's the improved version)
a lenco gl69 arm
some shure v15 (iii) stuff including oem and aftermarket stylie mostly VN15E.
more assorted shure things including an n3d stylus

I am not a great fan of shure I must say and the v15's track around 1 gram which will likely once again be a problem in that lightweight arm, but would replacing it with the sme series 2 cure my light arm issues?
I am totally blind so need sighted help testing tracking weights (I do have a scale, useless if you can't see it though) and setting up headshells etc. I have spare headshells for both the lenco and the jelco arm which thankfully is universal.
Help please, especially if you have modern alternatives that will have the full, lush orchestral sound I like!

 

Did the SME come from the same source as the V15, if so it's likely the right low mass version of the SME designed for the Shure cart, there's a really good site for identifying which version of the 3009 one has, but I can't find the link at the moment. The SME and Shure will likely outperform your existing arms and carts as they were very high end when new, the problem is that the arm won't fit on either the GL75 or a Pro-ject deck, having said that both the arm and cart have a decent value, if the styli are new and sealed then you should get well over £100 for the cart and depending on which version the SME is that could be a few £100 more.

On the subject of the 2M Blue I'm not a fan, the 2M Bronze is very good, at a price, but the Red and Blue are nothing special and the Audio Technica VM95 series outperform them and are much, much more competetive on price although I can't tell you if one of that range will give you the sound that you desire.

 

Yes they did come from the same guy, the shure and arm. I'll give them a go on the Rotel, the pro-ject will probably end up being sold/got rid of. Not a fan either!

 

Nice gift, the Shure was pretty much the pinnacle of moving magnet design at the time, hopefully it gives you the sound you crave, if so Jico make very nice replacement styli for it.

 

Yet another nos goldring g800E came today and yet again 1.5g doesn't sound good, it only sounds at all decent at way more! probably 2.5 grams. This is now 2 new old stock original g800E stylie with exactly the same issue. It actually does sound good now but I'm worried about damaging my records since it's much higher than recommended. Could it be that the suspencion just gets shot as it gets older? this one was in it's original sealed box with instruction sheet and all...