[hibuckhobby]

Context:  Rogue Tempest integrated, new tubes.  Klipsch Cornwalls, Rega P25, Jolida JD9 phono stage.

After seeing the 440 go on sale on Amazon again, I jumped on it and installed it in my Rega.  Yes, it is bright right out of the box, but after 100-150 hours it has smoothed out nicely.  The Grado is well broken in.

I have not been a Klipsch fan in the past, but the clarity at low volumes and the midrange detail is winning me over fast.  With them in the system, the differences are far more apparent than they were with my (still owned) Usher floorstanders.

The grado has a sweet, fairly extended top end and a warm midrange with a slightly recessed upper midrange.  The midbass is very big as is the bass...although at times a touch wooly.  If you have bright recordings, it does wonders for them.  The AT is a leaner sounding cartridge with (to my ear) outstanding clarity and transparency.  The bass is taut and fast, making it easy to follow complex bass lines.  The midrange is less romantic than the Grado and takes a bit of the lower weight out of male voices.

I started out preferring the Grado as well as my Shure Vxmr to the AT.  I confess that as time goes on, I find myself re-installing the AT because I hear more of the mix and what is going on in the background with it than the other two carts.  Was listening to The Fabulous Thunderbirds "Tuff Enuff" album last night and was movin' my bony old butt all over my listening chair...seriously considered getting up to dance.  That's why the 440 is staying on the table.
YMMV   

[Mitsuman]

I too, own both the Gold1 (longhorn modded) and a 440mla. Both cartridges do different things well. I was running the longhorned gold1 on my Mitsubishi DP-EC2 for about a year, and running the 440mla on a Pioneer PL-7. I've swapped them back and forth several times, but have concluded that the 440mla compliance is a better match for the medium-mass stainless steel "S" arm on the Mitsu deck and that the Grado compliance is a much better match for the low-mass carbon fiber straight-arm on the Pioneer. I added 2 small "dots" of plasticene to the mitsu arm and it really made for a better match. It changed the resonant frequency slightly and really opened-up the soundstage and the transient response. I am also running Klipsch speakers in my main rig with the 440mla, however mine are RF series. The Grado/PL-7 combo is in my family room system and plays very well with some vintage Polk Monitor 7's. I like the speed and attack of the 440mla, along with it's fantastic tracking ability. That being said, the Gold1 still has the best sounding, most realistic midrange and really makes horns sound wonderful. It's nice to have both, as I said they do different things very well. 

[Wayner]

+2

 

[Will Lusher]

Question to Wayner from Will Lusher who will in a few days after the election order a Grado Gold 1 from Frank Van Alstine but finds himself in a funk which arm to match it to on a Thorens TD-160 table.  Now has the stock TP-16 arm, with other possible options for future purchase being a Origin Live Zephyr or one of Vinylnirvana (Dave Archambault from Exeter, NH) who will work on getting the Thorens back to functionality-upgraded Rega [Moth] RB-202 tonearms).  Its the pairing match of the high compliance of the Grado with these arms whose mass is aimed at the larger-audience-found-in-current-favor moving coils.  The fallen-out-of-favor Origin Live Zephyr hence can be bought new for bargain basement price (the turntable of my dreams [due to my parallel calamity of your driveway also] has to be dimmed down to resurrecting this ancient Thorens-since the tonearm was broken off the modded by Frank HK table).  Any advice your larger view brings to this decision would be welcomed.

[Wayner]

I have an RB-300 arm by Rega, but it is on my home built "ARMod" table, using a Hurst motor that makes it not compatible with a Grado (hum wise). Boy this is an old thread.....

On the other hand, if you visit the Grado Hum Database: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1k_Wr5zx-hcJ0as6wub8wIqsMu2a67DyLhzE8grJp9mc/edit#gid=0, you will find that the Thorens 160 does not work with a Grado anyway, due to its unshielded, synchronous motor.

Wayner

[Will Lusher]

Thanks for your speedy reply.  This turntable refurb project will take me a long time to get accomplished, but end up in the dream table will buy piece by piece to use the rest of my life--(as upgrading my Fet Valve 400R to 600R status-which will be sent back for upgrade right after the elections will finally get it right, as my Vision/DAC is now upgraded as far as its possible to go that Frank finally just finished and is now back in my system).  When i visited Frank in 2005 he told me then had to have a DC motored table-but the new ones are simply too expensive to consider. So, the Origin Live DC motor/speed controller will replace the stock AC motor the TD-160 came with.  To be ordered only when can be paid for-all one one step at a time.  All of my 1300 remaining LPs have set useless to me since 2003. But the Vision/DAC has the phono section so far never used pending completion of the table restoration project.  And these replacement tone arms factor into the success of the entire project-investigating everything at once. The question i have to get answered is, since cannot afford those exotic carbon-fiber lightweight arms-will i be better off with a modified Rega arm or the Origin Live Zephyr? Which is supposed to be a step up from it, and can right now be bought pretty cheap.  Sorry i am so long in the tongue, but you had no way to know about the rest of the project and your pointers are very well taken.  Thanks. Will Lusher in Cedar Rapids, IA-longtime AVA customer.

[Will Lusher]

Yes indeed Wayner this is an ancient thread. But one of only two i found in all of AudioCircle that even mentioned the Origin Live Zephyr arm-and what a surprise when got it opened to find your very familiar face. And the only other mention of this arm was by the same person who had posted here.  Which in point of fact gave me zero useful information to help me decide if the Zephyr was going to be compatible with the longhorn Grado Gold 1, or if there was another well under $1000 tonearm i would be better off considering for future purchase.  So guess had best go back to audiocircle vinyl area circles to post a question about Rega (Moth) RB-202 (and which replacement arm counterweight is superior) vrs Zephyr.  And the value of the various record clamps, and these other mysteries.  Thanks.  Will Lusher

[Wayner]

I have a earlier version of the Jelco SA-250 on my VPI HW-19jr., but it has a poorly shielded motor, so it would be a hummer. I have one of those (an Audioquest PT-6 arm actually), but I would consider it to be a lighter, medium mass arm. I would have liked to have tried that one combination myself.

The Origin Live DC motor with its controller is suppose to be a very nice drive. Good choice.

Do you know what the original spindle to pivot distance is for the 160?

[Will Lusher]

No clue what that distance is, Wayner, but since i won't be the one setting it up after i gather and send all the components to Dave Archambault at VinylNirvana, it will be for him to do.  Yet will check it with my Dennison alignment protractor when it arrives here before use.  Will go on line next and see if i can come up with what that measurement is.

[Will Lusher]

Sorry, Wayner, but am diabetic and my blood glucose went all the way down to 33 in the fray to get this information you requested and had to be remedied before was back together enough to delve it out for you.  i only get 1 meal a day to live on, makes it tight.  i suspect your question is moot in importance, though, as Dave at Vinylnirvana offers a replacement armboard to accommodate the Rega and derivative arms used on the Thorens tables, but let me answer you completely.  The TP-16 has a 215 pivot to spindle distance as listed on the www.vinylengine.com/turntable-forum/topic.php?f=100&+=54825 under manufactures & Ariston/Linn, the answer to your question by bubba 45 on 25 Jan 2013 16:26 in Oxford, UK was to be found.  At  www.Vinylvirvana.com at Home upgrade parts and mods  New Thorens Tonearms Mounting Plate Armboards for TP-16X arms to accommodate quite a few of the Rega arms (not the 250 though, that one still in the works but to arrive shortly) and the others that use the same base, as the Origin Live arms do, the one-piece aluminum design mounting plate is offered for $59 to locate them in a place they can be correctly aligned-but some material does have to be ground off the stock Thorens chassis to accommodate the proper fit for either the Rega (Moth) RB-202 or the Origin Live Zephyr in 9.5" length.  At least that is my understanding, which may still indeed not be complete-this is all a quagmire for me to figure out.  But if this armboard were not available, which i had made no prior mention of, the path to proper completion would have been much grimmer.  The Origin Live still the more expensive of the two-yet the bearings in the RB-202 are nothing but what comes stock-whereas the new Origin Live Zephyr according to the factory literature had already undergone several bearing/yoke implementation upgrades since the release of the 2005 Silver Mk II arm-or the other option of the used Origin Live Encounter Mk II which was also considered but was judged not to be compatible with the high cartridge compliance of the Grado Gold 1, but would end up at about the same price.  Way too much information to compress into too little space, to take this much of your time.  But its life or death in importance to me, as only get to make this decision once and undoubtedly then live with it forever.  Thanks for your help, and say hello to both Frank & Mary when next you see them.  Will Lusher

[Will Lusher]

Sorry, Wayner, it is vinylnirvana-my misspelling in the above email.  Have worked around the clock to try to find a suitable after market arm to mate up my Thorens TD-160 and the Grado Gold 1, having found the post from Toni Rombold on 30 Aug 2010 at 10:10 P.M. in which the formula was given to calculate tone arm/cartridge combination resonant frequency to try to get as close to the ideal of around 10 Hz resulting in wanting to find an ideal effective mass of the tone arm being around mt = 7,2 gram-yet it would appear from your statements that this is impossible to calculate without having the arm in question in hand-an utter impossibility for me to do.  The Infinity Black Widow II was there held out as an example of perfection, to which you came back with that even the lowly Technics SL-1200 arm would work quite well.  The ideal arm would be between 15 to 20 grahams, so you concluded. Does that translate into the mass of the entire arm with counterweight attached?  i didn't think so.  So exactly how can i determine the preferability of the use of the Grado Gold1 matched to either the Origin Live Zephyr, or the earlier Origin Live Encounter Mk II, or the even earlier Origin Live Silver MkII or MkI, of which there is still one new in the box in Europe for $500 as an idea fulcum on which to mount a quite uncompliant Decca Gold London.  Each one a worse match than the former as far as mating it to the Grado, as with higher mass the longer ago they were produced?  And the Origin Live Zephyr (whose entire arm weight is 620 grahams so 22 oz) (but this not for the tonearm itself, which was all that gets called into question) as compared to the Rega RB-202 (Moth)?  i am baffled.  5:52 P.M. on 10-31-2016 sent by Will Lusher

[Will Lusher]

Wayner, at 4:28 A.M. 11-1-2016 have been at this non-stop and have found a much better alternative for an arm than any of the other possibilities so far considered-so you need no further concern yourself with a reply, as have found a very solid arm candidate whose mass can be tailored by its British builder to match the Grado compliance perfectly.  Thanks for your time-presume from my futher research unknown until yesterday you are the one who will be building my Grado Gold quite soon.  Night. Will Lusher