kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov (Scott Dorsey) (06/10/91)
Fro those of you who haven't been following the aftermath of my infamous European vacation, I came back from Britain with a Decca/London Maroon cartridge which I had picked up for tjk, our illustrious moderator. Unfortunately it was a far more expensive cartridge than he had expected, so I put an ad in an audio magazine and sold it about about 100% profit, which is apparently less than the official U.S. importer is selling them for. So, what did I do with the money? Sent it off to England and bought a better Decca/London cartridge, of course! I got the next model up, the silver one. For the last year or so, I have been using an Adcom Crosscoil cartridge, which I really like. It's not quite as lush as the Grados, but it has the Grado imaging and a good sound to it. And it tracks far better than the Grado. However, an attempt earlier this week at attemping to play a damaged record at about 4 gm. tracking force resulted in some damage to the beast, which, when repaired with superglue, dramatically reduced the sound quality. And Adcom wants $100 for a new stylus assembly (for which I am horrified). For a week, I was using the Grado and gritting my teeth at the mistracking and just debating what do to about the Adcom. Then it came in the mail. The Decca cartridge. I put it in, and aligned it. And I tried it out, and it wasn't bad. The sound was quite harsh, but I suspect this will even out as the thing is broken in. But the imaging is very, very impressive. One monor drawback is that I seem to hear a lot more clicks and pops than I used to; this might be due to the harshness, though, and I am just noticing them more. It also doesn't seem to do well on discs with a lot of very low frequency information, or on warped and bent ones. E. Power Biggs did not survive it. But it doesn't sound bad. I still think I am going to get the Adcom repaired sometime, though. --scott