Very Interesting Read on needles & Cartridges

James_Douglas · by **James_Douglas** » Wed Jun 19, 2013 5:26 pm

http://shure.custhelp.com/app/answers/d ... al-seminar

James

Rob-NYC · by **Rob-NYC** » Fri Jun 21, 2013 1:27 am

That is an interesting article, and somewhat poignant. I remember the late seventies when digital recording was beginning to appear in classical and some pop recordings.

The arrival of the CD was supposedly imminent and you could feel the focus shifting from records to digital media. The new classical recordings had higher dynamic range, which was sometimes a nuisance, and the "digital bass" that we have since come to know.

It was also the last great epoch of phono tech. One item i remember seeing were these stick-like tonearms made by Infinity. I first saw these at, of all places, Studio 54. These arms had nearly no relative mass and didn't even have a shell -the cart was directly wired-in.

The other fad/innovation back then was linear tracking. IMO A good idea often excessively engineered. I have three linear tables: Technics SLJ-33, Sony PF-FL77 (WAY over-engineered) and a Mitsubshi X-10 tuner-cass-TT. The Mitsu is the cheapest of them....guess which works best.

Thanks again for the link.

Rob

James_Douglas · by **James_Douglas** » Fri Jun 21, 2013 6:26 am

Hi Rob,

You are welcome for the link. I am reading everything I can get on cartridge development. I am sick of looking around for cartridges for my M100A and I also have a Library Unit.

I am going to find a way to build a cartridge that will take a "standard" available needle like in the Shure M series.

I talked with Shure and they killed off their OEM department and they do not sell parts. I am ordering a couple of cartridges to see if they can be cut open and the guts salvaged for a new design shell for the entire line of Select-O-Matics .

The new 3D printing and a couple of companies that will do it for you if you have the computer files are a great technology to solve this problem.

James

orthophonic · by **orthophonic** » Sat Jun 22, 2013 5:45 pm

I too have thought about making a new cartridge for the select-o-matics, just don't have the time. The NSM
Shure is very similar to the Seeburg Pickering and would be a good starting place.

I would personally prefer to use the Ortofon OM series, the range of Styli selection is greater than Shure and
I believe Ortofon will be around much longer than Shure. Ortofon did make a cartridge for the NSM's, I wonder
if they still have the castings and if it could be modified to a Seeburg mount?

I would love to have the time to explore these options, but as always, work gets in the way.