Notice That There Are Not Many Survivors of the MC from the early 19080's or so?

bill

I have the Jico SAS stylus for the V15Vxmr body, I will compare it to the new Shure OEM stylus. Perhaps my NOS stylus needs to be broken in some? Suspension limbered up, perhaps I’ll play it more before comparing.

Meanwhile, I can compare the Sumiko Talisman S to the AT160ml. I already know they both have excellent imaging, and very involving sound, the question is whether I can detect any subtle difference that must be there. I’ll get my young audiophile friend to listen with me.

Like you and your AT-VMN760xsl, I just love it, I have two AT160ml, and one at150 body with an AT160ml stylus. All great prices at Yahoo Japan Auctions, and they all came with AT Magnesium headshells with azimuth and overhang adjustment.

btw, when worn, if Steve cannot put a new stylus in the beryllium cantilever (that microwall be is so brittle, risky to mess with), I can put any VMN stylus on the AT160 or AT150 bodies, it’s the same outer design as your 760 body

Lastly, like you, out comes the MC AT33PTG/II to compare to the winner of the above. MC if the Sumiko, the others are all MM.

I think this time I will take the trouble to use the SPL meter to find the volume knob locations for each for proper listening.

@bdgregory 

I had an AT 150, the seller called it an AT160ml. It turned out, only when I removed it from the headshell, the identification was only on the top of the cartridge, how stupid is that. That's my AT150 body with an AT160ML stylus (which is why the seller thought it was an AT160ml. I ask for 1/3 refund and seller agreed.

You might remove yours, and find info on the top of it.

Crazy that I just mounted a Sumiko, Talisman Alchemist S. These were supposed to be 80's gold standard HO MC cartridges. I use a Van den Hull MC ONE which is fantastic but looking forward to spending time with this new & interesting find

@elliottbnewcombjr kinda driving in parallel audio lanes, lol

@elliottbnewcombjr   

yea, I thought that may be the case, but I dont have the energy to dismount it yet, so long as it's working.  One of these days it will be time for a cartridge swap.

thanks

@bgross 

It’s the same, just low or high output, which would change the weight of the coils a speck, your’s having more copper to get up to 2.0 mv..

AI quickie

"The Sumiko Talisman Alchemist S (specifically the IIIS or III S model) is a High Output Moving Coil (HOMC) phono cartridge distinguished by its Sapphire tube cantilever and line contact diamond stylus, contrasting with the lower-output Talisman S which uses a Sapphire cantilever but is a LOMC. Introduced as part of Sumiko’s premium "Alchemist" line, the Talisman Alchemist III S typically features an output voltage around 1.8 mV"

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Sumiko says 2.0mv output, still that is not a lot of signal output, my mx110z preamp’s MM phono’s sensitivity is 3.0 mv.

https://akdatabase.org/AKview/albums/userpics/10007/Sumiko%20Talisman%20Alchemist%20Cartridges%20Brochure.pdf

my lomc version has 0.26 mv output (into my SUT; 5.38 mv out of my SUT), and 9.2 coil impedance, so it uses the same gain and impedance setting as my AT33PTG/II which has 10 ohm coil.

Sometimes it says ’line contact’ but they are Van Den Hul which is a variation of line contact.

It’s a hard shape to align with the null points, I use the protractor lines and a mirror, any thing out of alignment is reflected ’opposite’, which helps refine ’straight’, both vertical for stylus azimuth and tapered body ’equally parallel’ horizontally to the null point lines