Smorgasbord: Versa Dynamics 1.0 under Walker Proscenium Gold Signature; Foreground: Technics SP-10/Stax/Electrostatic. Middle, right: Garrard 301/Ikeda 407/Nagatron ribbon; center, amp for Stax; left, Garrard 401/SME3012/Nagatron Induced Magnet. Click pics to enlarge.
Letter from NYC (54) 2016 (10): Heroic Analogue Efforts
Rare Cartridges: Nagatron, Stax
(Article finished in HK). For me, this is a special article. Not many are privileged to get to hear even one rare analogue legend, not to mention several in one morning. But my friend Andy basically did a "presentation" for me, and I am damn impressed! Thanks to the old souls who keep the flame alive! In an era of hyperbole's (generously applied to each new generation of "super" cartridges), re-visits to an older era should be mandatory.
I had first arranged to take my Empire and Shure cartridges to Andy's place for a listen. As it would be a lot easier to have an arm with a removable headshell, I asked Andy to make one available. Imagine my surprise when I walked in to see so many turntables, armed with RARE cartridges. Pics here are indeed worth a thousand words...
We did not listen to the Versa Dynamics 1.0 under the Walker Proscenium Gold Signature (with Stanton 380, reported previously). For associated equipment, see the link.
Garrard 301/Ikeda 407/Nagatron (Jeweltone) HV-9100 Ribbon
Nagatron Ribbon (0.04 mv output) was connected through a dedicated 1:100 transformer (Nagatron Z Coupler).
Garrard 401/SME3012/Nagatron 360CE Induced Magnet
SME 3012 (converted from SME 3009) with damping trough
About Nagatron I found some of Andy's postings in vinylengine. Attached below.
"...Nagatronics was active in the heydays of the vinyl era. They marketed in
America a full line of phono cartridges made in Japan by Nagaoka during
the 70s and 80s. Nagatron as a brand is now mainly remembered by
their induced magnet cartridges which, imho, can still hold their own
sonically against many high-price phono cartridges currently available.
Nagatron's flagship cartridge was not an induced magnet type but was of an "exotic" ribbon design. Instead of a magnet, a piece of iron, or a coil in the magnetic field, there is a strip of ribbon. According to Nagatron, the ribbon design offers the highest degree in linearity of all the magnetic phono cartridges. The penalty, however, is in the output level. It is around 0.04mv, a magnitude lower than the current low-output MCs, therefore, requiring a high-gain transformer or head amp to work properly into a normal preamplifier.
There is also this lencoheaven thread (where the pics of the HV9100 below come from)
Sonic Notes HV-9100 I absolutely adored the Ribbon HV-9100! Although working in a different way, its sound did remind one of the ribbon planar's clear, pristine presentation, but sans the undesirable peakiness. An open window; marvelous! 360CE As for the Induced Magnet 360CE, the sound was softer, but eminently enjoyable. Part of this may be attributable to the more mellow damped SME arm (as compared to the Ikeda). In any case, the sound was still excellent and hard to fault!
Andy told me Nagatron lost its shirt developing the amplification/transformer for the ultra-low output cartridges. Admirable heroes of hifi! I am sure there will be more Nagatron in my analogue future!
Technics SP-10/Stax UA-7 and CPX Electrostatic Cartridge
Stax CPX electrostatic cartridge is connected to the Stax UA-7 arm via a dedicated arm tube.Stax
Electrostatic is fed through the Stax POD-Xe, a tubed
oscillator/de-modulator unit with a bypassable 10db solid state booster
amp.
Posts
I bought my Stax CPX from Bascom King and I thought it was fairly quick but lean/thin sounding compare to my original Koetsu Onyx long slant body with had a thick dense sound but slower and more mellow than the CPX. I sold the Stax and kept the Koetsu, a Benz Glider (lays somewhere in between those two wonderful old cartridges, but not of the same caliber as the Onyx. Later I pick up a first generation Zu/Denon 103 (this is a lively sounding cartridge, quite engaging). I still have my Dynavector Ruby23, a Microacoustics 2002e, several different Grados, an ancient Decca 3 prong London, an ADC XLM. I stop listening to records maybe 15+ years ago, have been using my Mac mini with Channel D software since. Like these gents here during the “plandemic”, I saw my several thousand records staring at me and decided to buy a phono preamp, clean up my Sota Sapphire/Lustre 801 and hook it up to see what I was missing. I have to say, you all do a thoughtful job of trying to ascertain what the components in front of you sound like and how do they differ from other similar equipment, a noble yet impossible task. I enjoy how content, thank you for all that you do.
ReplyDeleteThx for the input! If I understand you correctly, you mean you are just contented listening to music, and that is just great. We play with things but enjoying music is of the utmost importance, first and foremost!
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