I think it might be your cable elevators that are the problem, I am sure Romy can give us a good recomendation of which cable elevators we can buy to get a better sound!  ;-)

RonyWeissman wrote:

Try as I might, I can't get my sme3012/shelter 901 combo to do tubas . My ortofon309/vintage mono cartridge does it magnificently the tuba down low makes me goosevumps all over just likenthe cello. I think my stepup for shelter is incorrect choice, the mono feeds directly into phono amp. I have no interest to audition Mc stepup devices, can someone other than romy just tell me what to buy to work with the shelter? I sau orher than romynas i know what he has and i can't find it/afford it.

RonyWeissman wrote:

What is the problem ? Listening to the, for example, rca victor red-seal  recordings of CSO /Reiner I hear midbass weight, presence and realism that I do not have with the shelter. It is not the pushing forward or highlighting of midbass like the denon 103 can do with midrange, it is the instruments in their place in the orchestra which somehow fits into my living room.  The tone of the instrument is the entire spectrum, not a particular aspact which is highlighted, and the overall presentation is much "lower" overall.

Well, I am not familiar with character of Pierre Clement cartridges at all, if would be difficult to say anything certainly but I would like to outline a few factors that you might consider.

1)  Your Pierre Clement cartridges might have the “presentation lower overall” with richer harmonics. Some of cartridges do and particularly vintage.

2)  Your shelter might be loaded to too high impedance. I never use the recommended 47K load and I think I use either 23K or 32K.

3)  You might have a bad step up transformer. This is most likely as most of the transformers out there are very bad. Try to borrow a full-gain phonostage with no transformer and to see if you have the same result. Alternatively you might try to by $19.95 chip toy phonostage, or any consumer phonostage in some kind of receiver or even digital phonostage and they them. Do not worry you do not need to get any good quality from them – you need juts to see if that “presentation lower overall” state will change if you get rid the transformer.

4)  Your Pierre Clement, being vintage is most likely has big ass conical or elliptical needle that is very good for old pressing records. Shelter is contemporary 8-grains shape, a complex shape that is too complex at time at some pressings.

5)  My experience indicates that the thrilling density in mid and upperbass that you are looking for shall not come from cartridge but from acoustic system. Take a commercial CD of the same perfume and play it in your digital playback. Generally the Reiner CDs are well balanced. You shall have all together identical sound from LP and CD, at least in terms of overall balance.

6) Do not forget your cable from cartridge to your step-up. This is the most important cable in your entire setup. If you cable is 1M and your step-up is 1:25 then the little coil of your cartridge driver 25M of cable.

Generally, from what I have seen the vintage cartridges are hugely not-neutral. You can but some kind crazy expansive SP from 50 off eBay and you can get not goosevumps but you will have new penises begin to grow on your back. It will be phenomenally exciting but only on a few recordings. If you play more recording with your new super special cartridge then you will recognize with time that the cartridges has the same character of sound everywhere and it will annoy you, it will. You will eventually return to all together neutral performing cartridges and will try to get your goosevumps from that  Reiner  by other, not natural means. Why do you think the people like me have multiple arms and play some of the arms very rare and only in very deliberate cases?