Re: [ARSCLIST] Stanton D5127 stylus

[Eric Jacobs <ericj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Marcia,

Let me start off saying that I haven't used the Stanton cartridges. 
I did have extensive discussions with Wyndham Hodgson over at 
Expert Stylus about cartridges/styli and he did mention that he's
seen some large inconsistencies in build quality from Stanton lately,
and personally doesn't recommend Stanton anymore (he still makes 
TE, conical, and spherical styli for the Stanton, of course).  You 
may want to pick up the phone and give Wyndham a call in the UK - he's 
one of the best stylus resources in the world.

Whether useful or not, I'll mention that I've been very happy with
the Ortofon SPU-GT as modified by Expert Stylus.  It's a moving
coil design, and as such requires lots of gain in the phono preamp
(52-60 dB is typical).  I have a number of phono preamps, including
the Millennia LPE-2.  The Elberg or KAB preamps don't have enough gain.
As a MC cartridge, you can't just swap the stylus - you need to swap 
the entire cartridge, and need to take that into account if you're 
doing production work.  But the fidelity from this cartridge is 
really outstanding, and with its very wide bandwidth (>50 kHz), it
captures noise transients extremely well along with the signal
(which makes restoration work and noise removal much easier, and I 
think the results much better).

I've also been pleased with the Shure M44-7, a moving magent design
that doesn't require nearly as much gain as the Ortofon SPU-GT. 
The Elberg and KAB phono preamps work just fine with this cartridge.
And the stylus can be swapped easily.  It does have a slight bass
bump in the EQ (it is a modified DJ cartridge after all), but for
a lot of music this bass bump is actually quite pleasant.

My $0.02.

Eric Jacobs
General Manager

The Audio Archive
tel: 408.221.2128
fax: 408.549.9867
mailto:EricJ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:ARSCLIST@xxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Marcia Segal
Sent: Friday, November 03, 2006 7:52 AM
To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ARSCLIST] Stanton D5127 stylus


To all--

I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who has used this stylus for digital transfers--quality of the transfer, comparisons with other styli used, etc.

I know this invites long responses, but please don't spend _too_ much time on this. I may have further questions based on responses.

Thanks in advance for any insights.

Sincerely,
Marcia Segal
American Folklife Center
Library of Congress
* * * * *
My opinions are my own. No, really.