[TimArruda]

Hi Folks,

I am new to vinyl, well may as well be.  I'm 43 and have not used a turntable since I was in my teens.  Over the past year or so I've been thinking about getting back into vinyl after having abandoned it at the dawn of CD's.  So, I began looking seriously for a turntable a month or so ago, and with some timely help/advice from Wayner (thanks!) ended up picking up a practically mint Music Hall MMF-5.  It has a Goldring 1012GX cartridge installed, which from my understanding is a MM cartridge.  So, somewhere along the way from picking it up, and transporting it home, I managed to break the stylus, actually the cantilever I believe.  I have no idea how I did it, I only know it was fine when I picked it up. 

What's done is done, what are you gonna do?  What I'm gonna do is move on.  So I did some looking and this particular cartridge has a replaceable stylus, and the going price seems to be $275 from either Music Direct or The Needle Doctor.  I'm a newbie here and really don't have any knowledge when it comes to cartridges, or turntables in general for that matter.  For $275 is it worth replacing the stylus?  Or am I better off getting an entirely different cartridge?  Budget wise, the $275 replacement cost for the stylus is as much as I'm willing to spend at this time.

Lastly, regardless of whether I get a new cartridge or a new stylus for my existing cartridge, what other tools do I need for setting up and/or using this thing?  Reading around various fora that deal with vinyl and turntables is somewhat overwhelming and I'm hoping I'm not going to have to spend all kinds of money buying tools to set this up properly. (I suppose I should have looked into that before getting the turntable.)  And by the way Wayner, it did not have the anti-skating weight so I guess I need to replace that.

Thanks everyone,

Tim

[TheChairGuy]

Tim,   

So sorry your post too hours to publish here.

As an anti-SPAM measure, newbies first posts need to be approved by a Moderator (such as myself) for the particular circle.

It's not like we get emailed or PM'ed for this...it's easily overlooked sometimes.  Anyhow, I just found your post and approved it's publication.

Welcome to AC and in particular, The Vinyl Circle. 

John

[orientalexpress]

That not bad,i just got my Benz Gullwing back,It's cost more then the estimate,It's end up cost me $1085.00 for the rebuild.oh yeah,It's take almost 4 months to get it back.What a rip Off.I should send it to soundsmith instead.



lapsan

[AudioSoul]

  I would do a search on the web for customer reviews of your cart. to get a feel if the Goldring suites your taste sound wise. There are a number of great new carts. for the price you want to pay. Personally I would start with Ortofon or maybe a high output MC cart. The Denon DL-110 get great reviews and is less than half of what you want to pay. You could use it for awhile untill you get used to the vinyl experience.......

[TimArruda]

Tim,   

So sorry your post too hours to publish here.

As an anti-SPAM measure, newbies first posts need to be approved by a Moderator (such as myself) for the particular circle.

It's not like we get emailed or PM'ed for this...it's easily overlooked sometimes.  Anyhow, I just found your post and approved it's publication.

Welcome to AC and in particular, The Vinyl Circle. 

John

Hi John,

No problem.  I will admit to being impatient, but figured the reason was more or less what you posted.  Thanks for the welcome.

Tim

[TimArruda]

@AudioSoul

I have been looking around the web, thanks for your suggestions, I appreciate it. 

Tim

[neobop]

Hi Tim - Welcome,
That seems like a rather pricey stylus. You can get it here for a little less:
http://www.lpgear.com/category/GOLD.html

They also have a selection of carts, some of which are a little less expensive also. If you want to replace the cart, you'll have to learn the procedures for mounting and adjusting. It's really not that hard. You'll need a scale and some kind of alignment device - a protractor or overhang gauge. If you want the hear samples of some cartridges, you can do it here:
http://daveyw.edsstuff.org/

I think it would be a good idea to reconsider the stylus. For less than the price of that stylus there are some nice carts you could get. Depending on what you like, you could get a AT7V at LpGear for $129, or a Grado Gold/Silver, Ortofon 2M Blue, Denon 110, Nagaoka MP-150 etc. There's a new AT-F3III low output MC for $179 that's supposed to be very nice. A stylus force gauge isn't too expensive and you can get a protractor for $10 or $15, or download it for free at Vinyl Engine.

If you want to go that route and run into a problem, just give a holler.
neo

[putz]

Kevin (a great guy) at KABUSA also carries the replacement stylus for your Goldring for a lot less than $275.

http://www.kabusa.com/frameset.htm?/goldring3.htm

[TimArruda]

@neobop

Thanks for the help.  I thought it was a rather pricey stylus as well.

@putz

Thanks for the link, that is quite the difference in price.  For that price, I'm thinking I'll replace the stylus on the cartridge I have and see what I think before moving to another cartridge.

Thanks so much for your help guys, exactly what I was looking for.

Do you think I should get a stylus force gauge anyway to check that things are set correctly once I replace the stylus?

Tim

[Ericus Rex]

Do you think I should get a stylus force gauge anyway to check that things are set correctly once I replace the stylus?

Tim

Always a good idea to have one around.  If you do a 'digital stylus force gauge' search here you'll find a link from Wayner for a good $13 gauge.  Can't beat it!

[DaveyW]

Hi Tim - Welcome to VE and commiserations on your little accident.

There's lots of options, one would be to track down the best price for the 1042 stylus which is a straight plug 'n' play and a very fine all round package.

Suggest you keep doing what you are doing though, look through the various cart related threads here and get a feel for what might fit your bill.
A Grado Gold 1 will give a nice fulsome character
A AT 440mla will be leaner, tight, dynamic and crisp
The Ortofon Blue will sit somewhere between the two

Unfortunately, there's plenty of choice 

Cheers
Dave

[TimArruda]

@Ericus Rex
Thanks for the idea, I will look that up.

@DaveyW

Thank you for the welcome and the ideas.  Too many options!    I was downloading various samples from your site to listen to and I have to say I like most of them that I listened to.  I really like the sample of the cart I already own, so I may just replace that stylus and call it a day.  Putz gave me a link to a site that is significantly cheaper than the other ones I had found, so I may just go with that.

Tim

[Ericus Rex]

Here's the link to the $13 gauge.  I have this exact one and it's accurate to +/- .04 gr.,  i.e. plenty accurate for us!

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.16269

[TimArruda]

Well, after listening, reading and looking around, I ended up ordering an Ortofon 2M Blue instead of a replacement stylus.  I was on the fence, as the simplicity of just replacing the stylus vs. having to install a new cartridge was appealing to me, but in the end I'm intrigued with the 2M Blue and looking forward to listening to it.  I also ended up ordering the $13 digital guage.   I still need to figure out some kind of cleaning system, and am leaning toward the Spin Clean as it seems like a good value to me and I really don't want to have to spend a lot more money, at least at this point.

I'm figuring I'll download a protractor when the time comes, and hopefully with a lot of help from people here, get it set up correctly.

Thanks again everyone.

Tim

[roscoeiii]

Spin Clean is a great way to get into vinyl cleaning. What an audible difference it made on used records I had picked up.

[putz]

Here's the link to the $13 gauge.  I have this exact one and it's accurate to +/- .04 gr.,  i.e. plenty accurate for us!

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.16269

Being cheap, I opted for the $11.50 model.

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/mini-precision-digital-pocket-scale-100g-max-0-01g-resolution-29836

Shipping takes a while. It's definitely on the slow boat.