Grado Cartridges and Stylus - Questions and Advice.

dude said:
Most of you are way up the ladder of Grado. I want to give a shout out for the lower tier. I have had my U Turn Plus with its standard Ortofon OM 5E a year and needed a new stylus. Rather than moving up the OM line stylus wise I ordered a Black 3. Super easy swap and loving it. 8 MZ maybe some day. Then there is the Grado story, family, NYC, USA !. After reading about them I just had to order a pair of SR 80 headphones. They are fantastic too.
Thanks for putting up with me and have a fun and safe 4th of July !
Click to expand...

Grado on the cartridge side and Zu on the speaker side makes for nice synergy, as you’ve found out.
 
dude said:
Most of you are way up the ladder of Grado. I want to give a shout out for the lower tier. I have had my U Turn Plus with its standard Ortofon OM 5E a year and needed a new stylus. Rather than moving up the OM line stylus wise I ordered a Black 3. Super easy swap and loving it. 8 MZ maybe some day. Then there is the Grado story, family, NYC, USA !. After reading about them I just had to order a pair of SR 80 headphones. They are fantastic too.
Thanks for putting up with me and have a fun and safe 4th of July !
Click to expand...
@dude, I like your style.
 
Got it installed. For those of you that have this cart...what weight are you running it at? I went straight to 1.7g...and seems good there so far.

ppQzKc.jpg



May need a bit more tweaking with the alignment, but it looked pretty good to me.

I do use a protractor mirror thing.
 
Does yours have an issue with bottoming out on the label when it gets to the runout groove?

Mine does for a bit before the Q-Up kicks in.

I did notice that it rides a bit low. Not a lot of clearance from the cart to the record.

20200709_170519 (2).jpg


I'll get the protractor back out.
 
LeeVing said:
Got it installed. For those of you that have this cart...what weight are you running it at? I went straight to 1.7g...and seems good there so far.

ppQzKc.jpg



May need a bit more tweaking with the alignment, but it looked pretty good to me.

I do use a protractor mirror thing.
Click to expand...
Joe Mac said:
Awesome! I’m at 2g, I really like it there. I think @AnthonyI said that he was at 1.75g. I’ll be interested to hear your impressions once it’s broken in, I couldn’t be happier with mine!
Click to expand...
Gratz!! Looks good on there :)

I actually moved the VTF up to 1.9 a while back to see how it sounded, I think the heavier setting suits this cart well, at least on mine it seems to help the dynamics/stage and the bass is a bit "smoother". The cart does ride low, but I haven't had any issues with it bottoming out at any point. Like you said, maybe double check your VTA, but it does sit low..........
Grado-Opus3.jpg
 
apholden said:
I compared Anthonyl's and LeeVing's photos. It looks like LeeVing's cart has a piece hanging down behind the stylus that sits flush in Anthonyl's cartridge. Can we get @RichGrado to check these photos and let LeeVing know if it's okay to push that piece up?
Click to expand...
Nice catch, I think I shot right past that post, that is interesting 🤔
 
remounted it and tested it on a different record and it seems to be better.

Still looks slanted...but not bottoming out on the label

There's a chance my stylus gauge was giving me the wrong weight originally and I was bottoming it out....because when I remounted it the counter weight was way off. The cantilever doesn't look like it used to.

20200709_200341.jpg
 
I got really worried about my gold 3 riding low the other day. Thought maybe I messed up the stylus but it’s not touching and I think everything is set correctly on my TT. Used my digital force gauge, and the mirror protractor (which I think I’m using correctly) and all seems fine.
 
Curious where others weigh your cartridge tracking force.

With this new Grado I'm getting a ~.30 swing between the outer platter vs the inner platter.

I have the outer at 1.70 but it's pushing close to 2.0 near the spindle.

Thinking middle may just be the best bet.
 
Last edited:
LeeVing said:
Curious where others weigh your cartridge tracking force.

With this new Grado I'm getting a ~.30 swing between the outer platter vs the inner platter.

I have the outer at 1.70 but it's pushing close to 2.0 near the spindle.

Thinking middle may just be the best bet.
Click to expand...
You know, I never really thought about measuring at two points........we'll have to check.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top