[sapporo]

hi, i recently purchased a hagerman bugle preamp because i plan on archiving my vinyl collection to flac/cdr.

my current setup is a technics 1200 with a m447 scratch cart. i primarily use my 1200 for scratching, but also use it for listening and sampling. my ears are likely not purist and im pretty happy with what i have. i'm also a producer/musician and often use the 1200 for sampling. i bought the bugle because it seems to be a very clean affordable preamp + i'd like the same for my sampling and recording cartridge.

after reading countless reviews and forum threads i've narrowed my new cart purchase down to a shure m97xe ($59) or a at440mla ($159). i'm not interested in anything priced higher than the 440 because thats the max i can afford.

i would just buy the m97xe because its cheaper and i think it will do a great job... however the at400 cart is appealing because from what i've read it gets below the surface noise because of its fine tip.

the thing is... i have quite a lot of vinyl that is poorly pressed and quite noisy (mostly white static, but also pops, etc). the pops dont concern me too much because i can easily manually remove those... however static white-noise like sound is much harder to remove without leaving glassy annoying artifacts. my plan is to do as little to the recorded file as possible. like i said a lot of my vinyl is poorly pressed and will likely never be repressed.

i am curious if the at440 will noticeably reduce the surface noise compared to the m97xe.

to be clear when i say poorly pressed, i mean even in mint condition it is noisy and staticy sounding (sssssshhhhhhhh) even in the grooves between tracks.

thanx!

[whell]

The AT may be a bit noisier, it tends toward the brighter side of neutral.  The Shure is a fairly uncolored cartridge and might be a good fit for what you're looking for.

[jrtrent]

I haven't had the 440MLa, but did own its predecessor the 440ML.  I found it to be noisier than average in terms of scanning previous damage on record grooves.  I use an M97xE on one of my turntables and love its sound, tracking ability, and handling of warped records, but while a bit better than the AT, it's not the quietest I've heard, either.  The vast majority of stereo styli have had a 0.7 mil cross section (.7 mil conical, .2 X .7 mil elliptical, etc.), so these will all track at about the same place on the groove wall.  A .5 mil conical would ride lower while a .2 X .8 mil elliptical would ride higher, and either might avoid contacting previous damage and thus make a record sound better (unless you have records from previous owners who wore out there records with .5 mil conicals or .2 X .8 ellipticals).  A line contact stylus doesn't ride lower in the groove to get below the damage; it rides above, below, and in the middle.  There is an excerpt from a Stereophile article below that explains why line contact styli can increase rather than lower our hearing of surface noise.

I've found a Grado to be lower in noise than some.  They no longer publish stylus size information, but they used to say their elliptical was .3 X .6 mil, which might ride below some previous wear.  A couple cartridges I've been meaning to try but just haven't yet are the Sumiko Black Pearl, with a .5 mil conical, and the Sumiko Pearl, with a .2 X .8 mil elliptical.  With a different published cross-section, these might have the best chance of avoiding previous wear and both are priced at less than $100.

http://www.stereophile.com/reference/170/index7.html
Footnote 12: Changing to a different cartridge can sometime work sonic wonders with old records, due to the new stylus riding on a different, relatively undamaged part of the groove wall. On the other hand, changing to a cartridge with a long-contact profile, Microridge or van den Hul, for example, can often increase surface noise and the reading of groove damage due to the stylus's being in contact with more of the groove wall.—JA

[neobop]

There is another line of thought about this. A micro stylus will have at least 5x the vertical contact area of an elliptical. If the record has wear from a previous stylus, chances are a micro will be tracking much more virgin groove. The noise is still there, but is much less obtrusive.

The 2 carts you're considering, are opposites, sonically. The M97 has a mellow, rolled off response and the 440MLa tends to be brighter, a little etched. Some load the M97 @ 62K to lift the high end, and some load the 440 @ 32K to tame the high end.

BTW, a shibata stylus rides near the bottom of the groove, but it has been my experience that it's not quieter than a micro on used records.