Mo' Mono!

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Daddy Dom, Sep 18, 2020.

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  1. Daddy Dom

    Daddy Dom Lodger Thread Starter

    Location:
    New Zealand
    I've waited a long while for the day my Ortofon 2M-PNP arrived, along with an extra 78 stylus. Now I can finally play my 78s and appreciate some incredible engineering.

    I know some here have a dedicated mono rig; that's a way away for me yet but it will come. I'm running a 301 with two arms. The 12" Bokrand/Ortofon wears an SPU while an SME 3009 has the 2M. Each one goes to a Graham Slee phono stage (MM and MC) with the mono switch engaged on the MM.

    Last night was some Xavier Cugat, Dean Martin on Capitol, an old RCA Surrealistic Pillow then Nat 'King' Cole, Elvis and Lonnie Donegan on 78.

    The Dino LP absolutely floored me with the sheer size of this live recording and the overall balance on the studio floor. Who knows what tonight will bring but I'm excited!
     
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  2. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Photos, please.
     
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  3. DigMyGroove

    DigMyGroove Forum Resident

    I’ve had a dedicated mono table set up for a while now, a Music Hall MMF-7 with Ortofon 2M Mono cartridge, upgraded with a 7.1 arm and 7.3 motor (shall we call it an MMF- 7.2?).

    For this mono table I use a Lounge LCR phono stage, which was just upgraded to an LCR Gold level from Silver. The Silver version sounded very good, but the Gold version is a huge upgrade. Now that great mono music is rivaling what it sounds like played through the Icon Audio PS2 tube phono stage I use with my Kenwood KD 770D stereo table (with AT OC9 ML/II cart).

    Interestingly it’s only in mono mode that the Lounge LCR Gold is akin to the Icon Audio’s tube sound, in stereo the tube stage is on a whole other level. Both of these set ups feed into a Fisher 800C and out to KEF LS50 speakers and a Polk subwoofer.
     
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  4. Daddy Dom

    Daddy Dom Lodger Thread Starter

    Location:
    New Zealand
  5. TheVinylAddict

    TheVinylAddict Look what I found

    Location:
    AZ
    I recall a thread when you were on the hunt, congrats, it's fun to play mono / 78 as they were intended!
     
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  6. Daddy Dom

    Daddy Dom Lodger Thread Starter

    Location:
    New Zealand
    Yes, yes it is! My brother is a serious gospel/blues 78 collector and he has discs so fine you wouldn't believe it's a 120+ year-old medium. Loves playing them for folks who say, "oh, you 78 guys love the sound of eggs frying." That soon shuts them up ;)

    Mine aren't as mint but need a good clean.
     
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  7. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    Man, that's three shades of awesome.
     
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  8. drh

    drh Talking Machine

    Congrats on dipping your toe into the 78 RPM pool. Just be careful: swimming into ever deeper waters can be overwhelmingly alluring, and there are no lifeguards!
     
  9. Daddy Dom

    Daddy Dom Lodger Thread Starter

    Location:
    New Zealand
    Yes, no lifeguards but definitely weight-limits. ;)
    Should I ever be privileged enough to travel overseas again, interesting 78s are most likely way off the menu. Here in NZ, we do have lots kicking about from everywhere but they are SO darned heavy!
     
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  10. Spla'nin

    Spla'nin Forum Resident

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  11. rl1856

    rl1856 Forum Resident

    Location:
    SC
    I use a Technics SP15 deck / AT 1503 MK3 Arm / Ortofon DG25 DI MK3 single coil mono cartridge

    Luhndal SUT

    Sounds divine. Great bass response. Solo or small ensembles sound in the room, with remarkable accuracy.
     
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  12. McLover

    McLover Senior Member

    My kind of man in terms of turntable/tonearm combo.
     
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  13. Daddy Dom

    Daddy Dom Lodger Thread Starter

    Location:
    New Zealand
    You have one but it's sleeping?? Gaah! Time to wake up that puppy, for sure.

    What moves you in a tonearm? (AKA, what's your budget?) :winkgrin:
    DD
     
  14. Spla'nin

    Spla'nin Forum Resident

    If wishes were fishes, a dynavector 505 or maybe a Tru-Glider ..
    But the audio technica would be just fine. I have an ebay Garrard TPA 12 wired for stereo that needs rewiring if things keep staying tight for a period correct piece along with a GE VRII but I really want to have something more current ..
     
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  15. Spla'nin

    Spla'nin Forum Resident

    Got any new to you or recommended vinyl mono's ? I was thinking of starting a thread for Mono's Only in music ... just got a 1951 recorded Lefty Frizzell sings Jimmie Rodgers but I am still saving my Rolling Stones & Beatles mono boxes until I get a worthy set up. Whatcha got ?
     
  16. vinylshadow

    vinylshadow Forum Resident

    Location:
    The south
    I have an Ortofon Quintet Mono that I have not unwrapped yet.
     
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  17. McLover

    McLover Senior Member

    A tip: The Beatles mono box and the Rolling Stones mono box were cut on Stereo cutting heads. Those require vertical compliance to not damage. Don't play modern mono reissues on antique mono cartridges with no vertical compliance. The exception to the rule is if you're using a Weathers FM pickup system or using a Shure M1 Studio Dynetic pickup system. Both track at 2 grams or even 1 gram in the case of the Weathers. Both have good vertical compliance and can safely play Stereo discs in mono with perfect safety.
     
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  18. Daddy Dom

    Daddy Dom Lodger Thread Starter

    Location:
    New Zealand
    Yeah, I can't go past the fact that more current engineering probably gives you mo' music. (IMO, of course.) Gorgeous though the TPA is!
    EDIT: I just goggled the Tru-Glider and spat out my tea! No doubting the Garrard could handle it but for that many fishes your choice gets bigly!! There's a heap of Bokrand Ortofons online now, I love mine.

    I love picking up '50s jazz on affordable labels. I love '50s Latin, too but also '60s pop titles sound great. I'm finding that anything my local emporium lists as 'noisy' means they have a stereo set-up and most things sound just great when I play them on my mono at home. And I'm "only" using a 2M!
    DD
     
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  19. Daddy Dom

    Daddy Dom Lodger Thread Starter

    Location:
    New Zealand
    And soundtracks!
     
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  20. Wolfie62

    Wolfie62 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Birmingham AL
    I have 5,000+ records in my collection. 4,000 from my folks; my mother worked for Columbia Records 1954-1967, and brought home records every day. The plant she worked in pressed for all labels, not just Columbia.

    A great many of them are mono records, 1954-1965. So many, that I never noticed were mono. I just played them using one of 118 vintage stereo carts that I have. They sound great!

    I wound up using the Stanton 500 or Shure M44C to play mono records. The mono records are constrained to 30 Hz - 10 kHz frequency response; early stereo records from 1957-1960 reflected that constraint as well. So the Stanton and Shure carts are a good match, frequency-wise.

    But I really wanted to try a mono cart. I already had a GE VR22 and VR1000. So I bought a VRII Golden Treasure mono cartridge.

    The VRII offers several advantages you’re not going to get with modern mono cartridges. First, it’s a 2-coil design, one coil on each pole piece, making it very sensitive to lateral groove modulations. Second, it’s a tip-sensing cartridge, reading the groove modulations at the stylus tip, not at the back end of the cantilever. As I’ve discovered when comparing the VR22 and VR1000, tip-sensing relays groove dynamics in a way that “back-Enders” just can’t; they lose some information along the cantilever and in the damped suspension.

    I modified a conventional headshell to fit the VRII and it’s T-bar. I removed 1 pair of headshell wires. So by not strapping the L/R wires, I avoid changing the loading on the cartridge. Strapping channels divides the R-load, and adds the C-load.

    I had to get a new stylus. The 0.7 mil tip was gone; the 3 mil sapphire tip for 78s was still good. But new styli have problems. They’re defective compared to original GE styli; the cantilevers are mounted at the wrong angle. So I removed the damping block, rebent the cantilever, and used my own compound to replace the damping block to add vertical compliance (prevent bounce) and better damping.

    Original VRIIs track at 4 grams. My rebuilt stylus tracks perfectly at 4.3 grams, 0.7 mil Diamond conical tip.

    The VRII plays very clearly, with great bass (if it’s in the grooves) and is extremely quiet in the grooves. Treble response is first rate. It’s the very fast, dynamic sound it retrieves from mono records that blows me away! The sound is so good, that I went back and started an entire new shelf for mono records! I have found many more mono records in my collection than I realized I had. I’m replaying records just to hear how the VRII renders the sound.

    I use the “MONO” feature of my receiver or integrated amp. That way I get twin mono sound without changing the cartridge loading. Sound is full, clear, quiet, and amazingly refined from all of these “ultra High Fidelity” and “Custom High Fidelity” LPs.

    Now if I can just figure out how to post pics in here. Some interesting observations on styli….
     
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  21. Wolfie62

    Wolfie62 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Birmingham AL
    Not a great recording, since it’s from my phone, and above and from behind my speakers. But here is the GE VRII Golden Treasure cartridge. Playing a 1960 mono record by Billy Vaughn on the Dot label.

    What you can hear is how clean and dynamic the sound is. (Swooshing sound is the window fan; it was 75 F when I recorded this.)


    Here is a 1953 recording, 1956 pressing.
    https://youtu.be/zQ_c0lA7yoU
     
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  22. sberger

    sberger Dream Baby Dream

    This week I acquired a pair of McIntosh MC30 mono blocks for Audio Classics. The next day, one of them went down with some issues, and back it went. Will probably be a few weeks until I get it back, but decided to use the single MC30 with my McIntosh C11 preamp and Klipsch Cornwall speakers(yes, using both instead of just one)in the main system to listen to some mono vinyl. I've used mono carts before, but don't have one now. Using a Fairchild 412 turntable with an Empire 98 tonearm and Shure M7D cartridge, and a Shure M65 tube phono(so I don't have to use long IC's to reach the C11). Suffice to say when I dropped the needle on the Airplane's mono "After Bathing At Baxters" and turned the gain up it was the most powerful, glorious sound I have ever heard from that recording that I've been listening to for 50 years+ on all kinds of rigs. Big, loud but with detail that I swear I've never heard before. Could this little amp be responsible for how great this sounds? Who knows? Probably some kind of synergy with the preamp and speakers, and the big, bad Fairchild TT. Whatever, I am so looking forward to pulling out not only a ton of mono vinyl this weekend, but also tap into my 78 collection.

    If you have a set of mono blocks and haven't tried just using one for mono LP's, give it a shot. You might be as pleasantly surprised as I was.

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    Last edited: Jan 14, 2022
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