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Fidelity Research FR7F history/changes

Recently fell in love with a front end I was supposed to be trying to sell for a friend that included this cartridge. Wonderful bass,dynamics, delineation of instruments with nice harmonics,... I bought the front end & recently bought a back up cartridge as well. What prompts the question is the minor cosmetic differences (believe they both are 6 digit serial numbers) - the 1st one (the magic 1) has a vertical stripe in front and seems to have a slightly different body size (the stylus guard of the 2nd cartridge does not quite fit; and the marked playback differences-the 2nd cart does not have the "technicolor" presentation of the 1st. It is OK but not what I was hoping for(It was supposed to have low hours and I saw nothing under the scope to contradict that). If there are experts or resources out there to fill me in, please do since when the time comes to retip, I assume that the magic might go away & I may need to hunt down another one & will need to figure out what criteria to look for to make sure I do not buy another that has less magic. Best wishes, LS
trytone
nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 
I agree with chakster except with his ''prejudice'' against re-tips. 
This FR 7 series is from 80is. As everybody should know worn out
styli are devastating for the records. Besides one can get ''modern
stylus'' in comparison with the ''old kinds''. Certainly so by ''Expert
stylus'' in UK. 
totem395
390 posts
 
Additionally NOS may well suffer from suspension issues 
rendering an otherwise unused stylus caput.

Note the "may" dependant on materials of construction and 
Environmental conditions.
chakster's avatar
chakster
6,144 posts
 
@totem395 you never owned FR-7 series, because you don’t even know about SEALED SUSPENSION, clever design from Ikeda-San. This cartridge NEVER suffer from suspension problem! Never ever!

NOS sample of the FR-7f (or fz) is a Holy Grail! :)
totem395
390 posts
 
Nowhere did I mention the FR-7 cart as having suspension problems, but as often as you mention
all your NOS cartridges available its prudent to note
the relevant pitfalls.


lewm
12,429 posts
 
I know this is a hot and controversial topic, but I have never owned a vintage phono cartridge that actually had insoluble problems due to aging of the suspension. In my experience, a few spins on the break-in bands of the Cardas test LP have always worked to bring a long dormant cartridge back to life. What we can never know is whether it then sounds the same as it did at birth. For sure, there may be changes due purely to aging, but the nature of such changes is lost to the listener. The cartridge can only sound good, great, mediocre, bad, etc, with the attendant faults and virtues. I take them at their "here and now" value. I guess you could conclude that bad sounding vintage cartridges may have got that way due to age, but it’s only an educated guess. I can only think of one or two out of dozens that fall into that category, and those one or two were "pre-owned", which means they could have been abused by a previous owner.
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