advertisement


Technics SL-150 with Mayware Formula IV

chartz

chartz

If it’s broke fix it!
Hello everyone,

I’ve just found that immaculate turntable for the princely sum of € 150 locally.

It comes with a Grado F1+.

I had never come across this tonearm before, and I don’t know what to expect after a stylus replacement, and if it’s worth the € 100 expense.

The deck is intended to replace a TD 160/TP16 (ball bearings), because I like the speed stability of a direct drive. I also have a Dual 741, a ReVox 790 and a Beogram 8000 on different systems.

This will be feeding a full vintage QUAD system (old ‘57 panels included).

Thanks!

Jacques
 
I had two of those Mayware arms... not bad but nowt special... (no I didn't but a second one after being unimpressed by them... both came fitted to TT's I bought).

Cartridge is pretty good but you won't be able to buy replacement styli other than the much later versions such as Prestige Black which fit but are really poor IMO.

TT itself may well be very good. I have an SL-150 MkII here which needs attention (another one of many round tuit jobs) but use a Thorens TD150 as my usual TT.
 
Thanks.
Are you saying that their current stylii are of much inferior quality to the ones of yore?
How is that possible?
 
chartz said:
Thanks.
Are you saying that their current stylii are of much inferior quality to the ones of yore?
How is that possible?
Click to expand...

or of different design. They were excellent years ago but the last couple I heard I really disliked. Overly smooth, lacking top end and lacking dynamics was how I found them.
 
Everything I don’t like then. I do enjoy a slightly glassy top end. I am fond of the new AT ML carts, which produce a thoroughly modern sound, like good digital, the antithesis of the old Shure sound.
They should work fine on this lightweight arm I guess. Opinions perhaps?

Cheers!
 
chartz said:
Everything I don’t like then. I do enjoy a slightly glassy top end. I am fond of the new AT ML carts, which produce a thoroughly modern sound, like good digital, the antithesis of the old Shure sound.
They should work fine on this lightweight arm I guess. Opinions perhaps?

Cheers!
Click to expand...

A good question. I doubt many will have tried the latest AT carts on this old arm... It's quite possible that the relatively high compliance AT's will work fine but it may be you will have to find out for yourself.

The Mayware arm I thought gave good tracking with a variety of carts and fairly low record surface noise but lacked dynamics somewhat. Bass was tight but at the same time lacked impact.. if that makes any sense! A Linn K18 worked well on it and that was basically an AT cart with a fancy stylus profile. This is from memory of a long time ago so take it with a pinch of salt:)
 
I once had a Mayware with a high output Dynavector MC. I thought it was great at the time and it was certainly not lacking in clarity.
 
Thanks for your replies gents.
Already bought anyway!

I’ll keep you posted then.

Cheers from Burgundy.
 
Excellent, that is a lovely turntable/arm for that money, a real bargain. The Grado F1+ was a very good cartridge indeed, though as Jez states modern Grado replacement styli are sadly not of the same quality. @Robert here on pfm has commented a lot about this, so a search might pull up some interesting content.

I’d carefully assess the quality of the existing stylus, and if it is worn look elsewhere for a cart. Just stick with a nice medium to high-compliance MM, the Mayware arm is good enough to deal with the best you can afford/justify. I’d certainly be happy to put something of the AT150MLX, Ortofon 540/II, Nagaoka MP500 level in it, just avoid MCs as it really isn’t the right arm for that.
 
Hi,

The deck is here. The arm is in perfect condition. I just filled the pivot trough (well ?) with some 600000 cSt grease. Not too difficult to set once you’ve got the process understood. The headshell angle to the record surface is aligned perfectly.

The original, nude stylus of the F1+ apears to be in very good condition (I have a microscope).
However, the sound is rather restrained, very sweet, a bit flat in the treble area. It seems to track properly though (at 1.6 grammes).
I’m used to a more upfront sound from my AT cartridges! The Grado sounds a bit like the old Shures, if that makes sense.
It has tremendous 3-D image depth, which was a surprise!
Is the Grado such a temperamental, flawed device? Do you recognize its characteristics in what I’ve described?

Thanks.
 
So much of an MM carts sound is down to loading that its hard to generalise. The ATs require exceptional little capacitance otherwise they sound absurdly bright to my ears, so if your system is balanced that way then the Grado may need some different loading options. I can’t remember its requirements, but if there is a house sound it is certainly warmer and weightier than AT. Obviously it is a very old cart now too, so the suspension may not be in the best of shape. Some carts seem to last forever (e.g. I’ve got an M95E that sounds great and likely dates from the ‘70s), others (e.g. Ortofons) just flop and die.
 
chartz said:
Hi,

The deck is here. The arm is in perfect condition. I just filled the pivot trough (well ?) with some 600000 cSt grease. Not too difficult to set once you’ve got the process understood. The headshell angle to the record surface is aligned perfectly.

The original, nude stylus of the F1+ apears to be in very good condition (I have a microscope).
However, the sound is rather restrained, very sweet, a bit flat in the treble area. It seems to track properly though (at 1.6 grammes).
I’m used to a more upfront sound from my AT cartridges! The Grado sounds a bit like the old Shures, if that makes sense.
It has tremendous 3-D image depth, which was a surprise!
Is the Grado such a temperamental, flawed device? Do you recognize its characteristics in what I’ve described?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I refer you to my earlier post #5
 
Arkless Electronics said:
I refer you to my earlier post #5
Click to expand...

Yes yes. So I need a bright, dynamic cart. Funny that so many were supplied here with that cartridge then.
It isn’t very compliant by the way. I knew collapsing suspensions but stiffened ones?

It is a moving iron design so no capacitance should affect it, unlike AT carts which indeed need very little, not to say any loading capacitance at all (apart from cable intrinsic value).
 
chartz said:
It isn’t very compliant by the way. I knew collapsing suspensions but stiffened ones?
Click to expand...

It never was. At the time Grado advertised it with a series of magazine ads stating “What a Grado can do in this arm (picture of SME Series III)... it can do in this arm (picture of a Pioneer PL12D)”. It was meant to be a high quality (SQ4 compatible IIRC) cart that would work in a wide range of systems.

As a newbie who didn’t at that time understand mass/compliance etc I bought into the idea and stuck one in the absurdly high-mass tonearm on my Lenco 75. It actually worked ok in fairness, I ran it happily for quite a while and I don’t recall any issues with warps etc. That would have been 1980 or so and the records I played endlessly with it are still in mint condition, so maybe their claims were actually true!
 
I do remember the ad!

So then, the Mayware could accommodate stiffer MC carts surely?
 
I’ve tried a new Rega Carbon that I wasn’t using, quite stiff actually. A nice little cheapie this.

I set the sliding weight near the headshell (two inches away).

It works quite well, tracks well and produces some nice sounds. I think that this is a good sign which encourages to try something better.

Perhaps an AT VM95 Ml or something like that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top