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   Home » Analog Playback» The Shelter 90X: mystery or mastery (55 posts, 3 pages)
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  »  New  Buying a last cartridge...  Lucky you...  Analog Playback Forum     80  779375  09-05-2008
  »  New  Shelter 901 on SME 309 tonearm...  I wish I was so smart at beginning…...  Analog Playback Forum     3  48961  12-08-2009
07-08-2010 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,049
Joined on 05-28-2004

Post #: 51
Post ID: 13944
Reply to: 13943
Cartridges are the subjects of personal hygiene
fiogf49gjkf0d

 marknoir wrote:
Hello Romy

I like Shelters as well, so I finally scrubbed-up enough money and began to search. I was always happy with 901, but there were none around. Last night I got a 90X, with (supposedly) around 100 hrs on it, within driving distance. So today I mounted it, and - horror - it sounded EXACTLY like you described your "flat" 901. No bass to speak of, heavy compression throughout the spectrum, and nasty, nasty peak at upper mids/lower treble, hard as hell. Tracking is fine, no distortion on cibilants, rides noemal, suspension feels right etc. Mystery. Right now it sounds so bad, that I will ask the seller to take it back. I don't feel like performing that surgery you did on your 901 :-) I guess this problem is not as uncommon... Back to OC-9ML II

Marknoir, I do not think that what you described is inherit problem of Shelter 90X. Of cause everything might be. Buying cartridges today is a lottery but I do not think that Shelter 90X shall be so bad. Most likely do you got a defective cartridge – that why it was sold to you – take it back to the seller. Which very much brings a question – what the hell you do buying the contemporary production used cartridges? I understand that people buy some vintage needle from 50 years old used. But the cartridges that made today – there is absolutely no need to by them used. I never buy used cartridges, never borrow them and never lend them. Cartridges are the subject of personal hygiene and must be used only by one person. Remember- no one ever will sell you used cartridges that sound good – the only reason why people sell cartridges because they do not sound good. This BTW is very applicable for all sales in audio. Private parties sell anything that they do not need or feel that it does not perform well. Take a look at me – whatever I see I consider not good for me anymore – so, what is the per pose to buy anything from me? So, buy a case a bear, take it with your cartridge back to the seller, make him dunk and he will tell you how he have fucked up his Shelter 90X.

The caT


"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
07-08-2010 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
marknoir
Posts 5
Joined on 09-25-2009

Post #: 52
Post ID: 13945
Reply to: 13944
Shelter 90X gone flat
fiogf49gjkf0d
Hello Romy and thank you for a fast reply<br /><br />You are absolutely correct, but it's the question of money, which I don't have a lot of. Like we say in Russia - "Bednost ne porok, no bolshoe svinstvo" :-) So when I saw this one for $1000 (new Shelters are severely overpriced these days), I jumped on it. The problem of course is not inherent in 90X design, this cartridge is either defective, or is clogged with dust like yours was. I contacted seller last night ( one day after I bought it) and he refused to take it back and refund the money. So now I have to go thru the whole shpiel of initiating dispute on Audiogon, and let them decide. I had done it once before and won, they were actually quite helpful there. Let's see what happens. At least when I read your post I knew I was not dreaming about this particular defect. Can I use your description of this defect from your postings? Thank you<br />
07-08-2010 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,049
Joined on 05-28-2004

Post #: 53
Post ID: 13947
Reply to: 13945
Buy Japanese needles in Japan.
fiogf49gjkf0d
 marknoir wrote:
I contacted seller last night ( one day after I bought it) and he refused to take it back and refund the money. There are some real a-holes out there.
Marknoir, he is not necessarily an a-holes. If I sell you a cartridge, you mount it and lower to a record then in my mind you own it and I would not take money back. Cartridges are the subjects of personal hygiene. You do not return your underwear, condoms or dental floss to store after you used them, do you? The very same are with cartridges and do not forget that the guy who sold it to you very much know what he was selling to you.

A few years back I had a conflict with a very famous Japanese cartridges manufacturer. They sold to me a brand new cartridge but I returned it only because I recognized masks of the cartridge’s pins. According to me: if a cartridge’s ever was connected by pin’s clips then it is used cartridge. The president f the company personally wrote me a letter assuring me that the cartridge was new and that the marks on the pins are technological. Nevertheless, if I see any signs of marking on pins of any dust in the cantilever channel then I the cartridge is considered by me as “used”.

Regarding the price. If you are in Russia then get your Japanese needle in Japan.  The US’s prices are twice of what they are on the Tokyo streets and I would not use them as reference…

The Cat


"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
07-08-2010 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
marknoir
Posts 5
Joined on 09-25-2009

Post #: 54
Post ID: 13954
Reply to: 13947
90X
fiogf49gjkf0d
Hello Romy

Today seller has changed his mind, he will refund.

I'm in Brooklyn, a bit too far from Japan :-)

Whenever I sell somrthing, I always give a money back guarantee, usually for about 7 days. I prefer to lose a few dollars rather than good night sleep :-)

All is well that ends well.

Rgds, mark


08-08-2016 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
steverino
Posts 351
Joined on 05-23-2009

Post #: 55
Post ID: 22704
Reply to: 8323
Denon pcm what was different about it?
fiogf49gjkf0d
 Romy the Cat wrote:

 I pulled today from my shelf my collection of earliest Denon PCM recordings on LP the Denon record in end of the 78s. I generally do not like this entire series but the first releases where OK, not as good as then might be analog but much better than they were on CD.

The Cat


Sorry to take a left turn on this old thread but this was the only reference to Denon PCM LPs here. I have a couple of these and I was listening recently to the Janacek String Quartets LP. While I could hear a slight coarseness to the sound it struck me that this was actually a rather realistic midrange. In fact it was far better than the digital LPs that were issued in the 80s in that regard which either were thin sounding or fuller but vague and muffled. The Denon LP had a much more involving midrange sound and better transient punch than those recorded in the Sony PCM era.


My question is does anyone know what Denon PCM encoders did compared with later Sony or related PCM encoders? I realize there were slight differences in the sample and bit rate. I think Denon was using 47k and 14-15 bits. But were there other attributes of their encoding process that might explain the subjective difference in sonics with standard digital LPs? I am not talking about LP vs CD sound to be clear. Of course it might just be that Denon had an exceptional LP masterer.

Page 3 of 3 (55 items) Select Pages:  « 1 2 3
   Target    Threads for related reading   Most recent post in related threads   Forum  Replies   Views   Started 
  »  New  Buying a last cartridge...  Lucky you...  Analog Playback Forum     80  779375  09-05-2008
  »  New  Shelter 901 on SME 309 tonearm...  I wish I was so smart at beginning…...  Analog Playback Forum     3  48961  12-08-2009
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