Big John
pfm Member
Today I completed the 120 mile round trip to Len Gregory aka The Cartridgeman in Croydon to make use of his cartridge upgrade service for existing Music Maker owner/customers.
After 8 years of intermittent use and since I retired 2 years of heavy use my Music Maker 2 stylus was knackered. I came away with a Music Maker "Classic" with sapphire cantilever, fitted with the latest incarnation of Len's "Isolator"
Whilst I fitted the cartridge; Len's "it's a fragile cantilever no side swipes" warning resonating in my head, please bear in mind I have very large hands & I am told sausage fingers (adrenalin is brown):
Using a protractor & small laser for alignment on the pivot of my Hadcock 242 silver arm, I discovered the sapphire cantilever is either longer or in a different position/angle to my 2 previous Music Maker cartridges, I also lowered the Hadcock 242 silver arm by 3mm using digital callipers because the new Isolator is 3mm thinner than before, then I reset the arm length, shortening by about 2.7 mm by moving the headshell back(Even before lowering the arm height the stylus position was different). I set tracking weight at 1.55.
The Classic sounded good from the start, my previous 2 Music Makers had needed a bed in period, Initial impressions are more of everything, more natural sounding instruments & acoustic. After a few LP sides it was apparent there is even more to come! After a few more LP sides I also realised there was missing surface noise not totally absent favorite records used were well used, it's absence was not immediately apparent, because the space is filled with extra information from the recording, records I have had for years have low level instruments in places/spaces I have not heard before ...
After 8 years of intermittent use and since I retired 2 years of heavy use my Music Maker 2 stylus was knackered. I came away with a Music Maker "Classic" with sapphire cantilever, fitted with the latest incarnation of Len's "Isolator"
Whilst I fitted the cartridge; Len's "it's a fragile cantilever no side swipes" warning resonating in my head, please bear in mind I have very large hands & I am told sausage fingers (adrenalin is brown):
Using a protractor & small laser for alignment on the pivot of my Hadcock 242 silver arm, I discovered the sapphire cantilever is either longer or in a different position/angle to my 2 previous Music Maker cartridges, I also lowered the Hadcock 242 silver arm by 3mm using digital callipers because the new Isolator is 3mm thinner than before, then I reset the arm length, shortening by about 2.7 mm by moving the headshell back(Even before lowering the arm height the stylus position was different). I set tracking weight at 1.55.
The Classic sounded good from the start, my previous 2 Music Makers had needed a bed in period, Initial impressions are more of everything, more natural sounding instruments & acoustic. After a few LP sides it was apparent there is even more to come! After a few more LP sides I also realised there was missing surface noise not totally absent favorite records used were well used, it's absence was not immediately apparent, because the space is filled with extra information from the recording, records I have had for years have low level instruments in places/spaces I have not heard before ...