[Daemon]

I just discovered the Van Alstine products, web site, and old news letters last month. OK so I'm slow to catch on   it's a danger one faces when living in country Australia.

Anyway, I just made myself a longhorn to suit a new Ortofen super OM 20 (I went the 20 because my wife has a chronic aversion to cuing arms and line contact don't stand up to her abuse).

I used right angle brass instead of U channel, and closed it gently to match the front angle of the Ort, then files through the bottom and after filling it with solder, stuck it on top, hangng down, right over stylus.

At the moment it's stuck on with blue tack, which is also what I used to fill the no solder voids  (I plan to make a few experimental variants).

I'm wondering, is there any real benefit to glueing the thing on? Or is the result going to be identical to the blue tacked on version. I figure all of you guys have probably made a fistful of these things, so soeone's sure to have compared this.

The result on my Systemdek 2 (oil pump bearing, glass platter) with Profile 2 (Sumiko gymbal streight) tone arm: More authority and speed from lower mid down. Sweeter from mid up. More detail and texture whilst being slightly smoother. All in all makes the slightly forward Ort alot more pleasant.

[TheChairGuy]

I found the Longhorn addition resuts in the same cartridge attributes, but larger in most every way.  More presence and solidity to the presentation...smoother, yet more dynamic. It seems to enhance tracking quite a bit.

Part of Mr. van Alstine's Longhorn conversion on the Grado's, as he's been kind enough to divulge to us, is internally damping the coils, as well, with liquid silicone. I tried it on my Audio Technica 440ml and didn't sense any benefit/change from it...but you may want to try it on your Ortofon (look thru the long post on the topic in Vinyl Circle)

The simple adaptation of the crossbar in front was the key ingredient in my set-up.  I didn't even use brass channel...I used 3 lengths of 1.5" 13ga. magnet wire glued together.  It's stuck on the end of 3 different cartridges with some tacky stuff - not soldered.

[EMM801]

On my Dual 506 with the stock ortofon, similar to the concordes, I cut a notch in my brass u-bar and used some permanent adhesive to  glue it to the cartridge body right behind where the stylus assy joins the cartridge body. The design of this family of Ortofons allows the bar to be placed very close to the stylus tip in all axes, closer than in any other cartridge I've seen. Too bad it's high inductance.

I owned one of these years ago btw and later got used to the longhorn grado and H-K T-25 sold by AVA years ago. I recently came across another one of these 506's and was surprised how noisy the arm was. The 3-1/2" bar I put on it made a night and day- and I mean night and day - difference in the sound.