drdna wrote:

1. This may simply be a symptom of electricity variability.  I would listen for a few days and see if it improves.

Do you mean that electricity affects the sound of one cartridge but not another? I doubt that, particulary considering that all my cartridges are driven into the same phonostage.

drdna wrote:

2. Cartridges not used for a while need to loosen up a bit in regard to the suspension.  Again, it may improve with continued listening.

OK, I will play it for a while, I hope you are right. Still, the magnitude of result worsening is much higher then what I would expect from a not broken in cartridge.

drdna wrote:

3.  Aging suspensions may need mass loading adjusted to compensate for this natural aging process which changes how the cartridge responds to the set-up.  The set-up may not have changed, but the cartridge HAS physically changed and the setup needs to be adjusted to compensate for the new physical characteristics.  Mass loading reduction is usually where I start.

I was trying it changing VTF for .3g up and down. I did not detect any improvement. Adrian , are you sure that the loading REDUCTION is the direction to go with cartridge ageing?

drdna wrote:

4. As a last resort for a moving coil, consider degaussing it.  It is a 2-edged sword, as it can bring a tired, dull cartridge back to life, but requires subsequent maintenance treatments.

Well, I am not a huge supporter of the idea of cartridges degaussing. It is not that that I did not observe an employment after the demagnetizing/degaussing of cartridges – the employment is obvious but I feel that the way the industry suggest doing it barbaric. I usually sort-cross-join the cartridge’s channels and run them for a few minutes in the groove. The cartridge magnetically gets reborn after this exercise. I never do any “forced” degaussing.

Of course I don't know if this also applies to your other cartridges that are working correctly through the same phono stage, but the VTA/bad electricity "problem" is peculiar to long line contact styluses.  And as I also noted recently, poor contacts anywhere along the route can do this, too.  You've probably already cleaned all the connectors, starting with the cartridge clips, but if not, give it a try.  Unlikely as it sounds, Clearaudio makes/markets the nicest cartridge clips I have seen/heard/used.

Remember the cable also goes dead with no use, and maybe try swapping phono cable before oyu throw in the towel.

Sometimes it seems like the better a component works when it's up, the worse it sounds when its down.

Good luck.

Best,
Paul S

I got home. I turned the thing on, I played it and it was just unjustly compressed. I demagnetized it, it got better, even though the cartridge did not pay a lot since I demagnetized it last time. It is still not where I would like it to be. It is just too loud. The entire lower dynamic range, right along with the surface nose, is like 6dB-12dB louder then it shell be.  It is not that I bothered with surface nose but the low volume music is just too damn loud - very degusting.

I check all configurations and setting many times. I check phonostage, loading, cable, grounds – everything was perfect. It does sound like the cartridge is worn but why it is so sudden?  Also, looking under the microscope the needle looks fine (I took it off and looked 3 times!!!) I have no idea what it is. The only thing that I might think is that the cartridge might accidently sucked in some metal dust from my room and the dust blocked somehow the cantilever or coil. From outside I was not able to see anything…

DHT4ME wrote:

… Suspensions either harden or soften.

Actually I know everything (:-) about the suspension and VTA. I can hear VTA very well. In fact contrary to what people say the Shelters are very sensitive to VTA. My feeling is that VTA and suspension are not guilty. You see, in order the a cartridge to compress that much the VTA what be off too much. I use cards on SME 3012 to measure FTA and now I am at 17 cards. Even if I was at 9 cards that would be WAY too low angle then I would have many other very severe problems and some very-very minor compression. My point that I have no “other very severe problems”. The bass at high dynamic range is perfect, so I conclude that VTA is where it shell be and suspension did not change, at least the static suspension…

DHT4ME wrote:

If you have not used it in a long time try a test tone LP with the LF bands for cart resonance and play it a few times. This will work it near the resonance safely and restore it a bit.

Yes, It will be a next step but I am sure that it will be fine.

DHT4ME wrote:

Unless you smoke or have bad ozone your cart is still young.

That is VERY interesting. I never thought about any connection between cigarette smoke and cartridges. I do not smoke casually but I do cigar and sometimes quote intensely. In fact over the period that I did not spin records a lot I had a few parties in my room with absolutely insulting amount of cigar smoke – literally was not possible to see the wall of the damn room. Do you think it might have an effect to the cartridges?

Today the electricity was wonderful and I had some time spent playing records. I was playing only my ill Shelter and I really did not like what I heard. At this point I might confirm that even the lowest bass is not where I would like it to be – it looks like the Shelter gets worse and worse dally. I one more time played with VTF, VTA, with arm setting – everything is absolutely perfect. Still I have

1)      Compression at the entire lower region
2)      Redaction of bass transients, along with fastening bass decay.
3)      Picking some very strange noises at HF
4)      Redaction of bass lowest end.
5)      Severs deppersonization of upper mid range
6)      Complete disability to play soft across all spectra.

Everyone is keep telling me that my damping in the cartridge is goner but honestly I do not buy it as now. Two month ago, when I did my “End of the Life Phonostage” the cartridge was perfect. Now the needle and the suspension are very same.  It is imposable to have such a rapid worsening of damping.

I am still at lost. I did sole to myself the idea that I get another cartridge but the  true reasons what happened with my current Shelter is truly interests me.

Well, I have sold to myself the idea that my Shelter 901 had died by a mysterious but unknown to human illness. I have sold to myself an idea that I need to buy another hard-reading cartridge, I do not know what it will be yet but “I am ready”. Still, the Shelter 901 has a perfectly alive needles tip, even though it sounds like crap. So, I am wondering what I can do with it?

I do not men to find any way of redemption but since I have no idea why it do badly sound I desired to exposed the dead Shelter to hara-kiri – to cut it open and to see what if anything I can do to fix it or at least to learn why it is gone bad so rapidly. I truly have nothing to lose. However, if I opine the thing up, discover that the damping of dried and then let say to boil the cartridge in low fat milk, after which it get the sound back, then would it be funny at least.

I have to say that I am very ignorant with cartridges assembly. I took apart 2 or 3 of them but then I was forced to trash them. – it give an idea about my skills in the field of cartridges dissectomy. Anyhow, I feel that to throw away this Shelter without making some barbarian experiments on t would be a crime against a common feline sense…

RonyWeissman wrote:

…Have you tried….

Romy the Cat wrote:

…. in the field of cartridges dissectomy….

Paul S wrote:

..And I coulda sworn I'd just cleaned 'em...Paul S

I spend so time figure out what is going on with my Shelter. I was not able to found how to open the cartridge safely. The bottom of the Shelter has a plastic tubing, sort of cover that protects the coil, I cut the plastic cover off and the needle sustention and the coil was exposed. Looking under a scope the damping looked fine and elastic but I realized that there a tone of dirt between the magnet and the coil. I mean the dust accumulated there and built a bridge between the movable coil and magnet. Too much for hard guess why the cartridge sounded so purely.

I cleared the gap with soft brash; it looks like there were no metal particles in there. After I did it I detected that I pulled one of the wires from the vertical coil that crossed the gap to magnet. I put is back. I put the cartridge back to the tonearm and… it played wonderfully.  No problem with compression, perfect ability to play soft and so on…. It looks like the problem is resolved. Well, yes and no…

I plagued a few more records and I hear some bass character that I would attribute to too low VTA or too low loading impedance value. The VTA and the loading were of course fine. I took the cartridge off and begin to explore what is going on. OK, I took it off 20-30 times (that to SME detachable shelf), making minor adjustment and truing to fine what the bass over damping was coming from. The cartridge has two crossed coils and very fine (I think 54ga) wires going the pins. What I learned that the profile of those wires and the level of freedom with which they live the coils and run away from coils does affect the damping of cartridge could. Sort of the wires act as the additional coil suspenders… Playing with it I found a configuration what the bass was more or less clean but I am not comfortable that there is so much flexibility in this. I am still not convinced that the coil’s wires in my cartridge do minimal impact to the coil’s movement. I guess do not know the reality - is blessing…

There was another, even worse aspect that I discovered. After a record or two playing and expecting the cartridge I was seeing each second time as the new dust come to the gap between the coil and magnet. Without the protective plastic cover the cartridge acted as a vacuum cleaner socking in all dust. Very very ugly! I have written yesterday ay another forum:

“The quietness of cartridge is very complicated subject and it is not always a good thing. If fact, for one of my arms do prefer to have a very hard-reading cartridge instead of forgiving one. In the certain pressings and on certain labels a hard-reading cartridge (uselessly the cartridges of “complex profiles) is as quiet as conical cartridge but they have an eddied value to scarp out the grove the last cent of “crisp”.  The 901 might not used for quietness assessment because it is ridiculously hard-reading cartridge. In addition to unfriendly for grove’s dust and grove’s wearing needle the 901 has (at list in my setup) the profile of the tip that is VERY electrostatically unfriendly. While the needle scraps the record it generates a huge electrostatic field, immeasurably higher then other cartridges I used. If you have high gain phonostage and high sensitivity speakers then juts by lifting the 901 a few mm above the record you can hear how the nearby groves are trying to discharge them to the 901 tip. I have no idea what in 901 responsible for it but something does. That all makes the 901 to have a very high (in fact insulting) level of surface noise. “

So, I need to figure out what happen electrostatically with Shelter and even if I put a new cover on it looks like the cartridge will sock dust juts around the cover. I do not mind to play it nude and wide open (as so other cartridges) but with this electrostatic aggressiveness it would not work out. The alterative would be to go arrays from the Shelter’s electrostatic behave all together. I wonder of it is the Shelter of something else… I have expected the tonearm and TT and I did not detect anything unusual or alarming…

After much talking with people I am still at lost what cartridge to get in order does not worry about cartridges anymore. It looks like I “fixed” the Shelter but now I need to take it off and to remove dust from within the cartridge – the ceremony I would like do not commit myself... I still play my SPU Classic and SPU Mono and … I actually do not remember that ever cleaned them for dust this year…

So, I kind of sold myself for a new cartridge… At this time the Ortofon Jubilee is atop my mind or a new Shelter 901/90x. If I have a confidence that the new Shelter will not be so electrostatic then I might be more inclined to Shelters. Perhaps I need to respell the problems with the electrostatic habits of my arm/cartridge. I hate to make a choice of the cartridge and then learn that my Cat rubs herself on my TT generating the statics each second I step out of my home…

Ok, I desired to go to the bottom of it and found what was/is the problem with Shelter’s tendency for high static. First I checked the arm.  Putting 3 different cartridges (with own head-shell) to my 3012I recognize that there was zero static during my “lifting test”. So it was the Shelter itself.

The polls of the Shelter and the needle are not grounds and I thigh this it might be a problem, they kind of have no reference to ground in the balanced configuration of the cartridge. Most of the cartridges have magnet and needle not grounded and it never a source of static with them. Who knows, perhaps with Shelter it is different….

 So, I took a conductive silver epoxy and glued a cooper magnetic wire right to the body of the poll piece. The other side of the wire I soldered to the shell that is grounded by own SME bayonet to the rest of the tonearm. No result. No result at all, still the 2 seconds static noise is there, making the cartridges dust vulnerable. I clearly have no idea what to do next and how to fight the static with this needle…

It is it; I officially close my books on my Shelter as I refuse to understand what it does. 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.

I played the Janos Starker’s cello virtuoso showpiece (QX-7140-ND) and was bitching how weak the PCM sound on LP was. Then I hit me that I was disappointed much more then I shell – it just did not sound this time right for me with all possible abnormal problems.  The miserable Shelter sucked in dust perhaps again I figured, I took it off cleaned it up – the same result. Playing it with any other needles I was getting my default sound back…

Well, I was the last stroke and I said that it was enough. I did not have this problem for almost 10 years and Shelter always gave to me a stable never-failed sound. Not anymore. Whatever the reason is: the dirt, the wearing or the protuberances on Sun I not willing to be the hostage of Shelter’s instability anymore.  I will keep this dead Shelter as my bass-reference needle (just in case) and it will be as much as I can get from it. So long Shelter, it was a good ride with you…

It is sad to say bye to something that I like but as anything else in life: one door closed - another is getting open… I wish the Shelter would the only lost I have, particularly this week… :-)

RonyWeissman wrote:

I really like my Shelter 901, but would like something which gives me a little more of the sound that i'm getting from my tuner. What do I mean by that, more realistic space/tone perhaps.

 I heard a few systems with top of the line Dynavectors – they were fine. I never had my own Dynavector so it is hard to say anything. I had in part a cold shoulder to Dynavector because I had Dynavector 507 tonearm and Dynavector 411 topmost transformer and I did not like both of them. I do not think that it is rational however to anticipate the same negative result from Dynavector needles as I got form arms and transformers.

I think my primary reason why I did not expose myself to other contemporary cartridges was a good performance of Shelter 901. What I was not “broken” - whatever is broken in it now – I very much appreciated what it did. I have many offers during those 9 years from many people to try different cartridges but I truly never had a need – the 901 did exactly what is necessary in my view. If my 901 did not go “south” then I would gladly continue to use it. BTW, who know, I might try now the cartridge that I when for and then… I might return back to another new 901… (Presumably that the today production of 901 is the same that it was 10 years back (this assumption might be a big starch).

So, for a time being I am getting the Otophone Jubilee – I have no idea what it. The recommendation came from a person who has very similar with myself opinion about a few various cartridge that he and I used and who used personally most of the SPUs, Meister, Jubilee, Synergy and Royal. I do not know how accurate would be his advice about Jubilee but he made the case for Jubilee much more substantiated than other people who advised me different cartridges. So, I a very interested what I will be getting, it shell arrive next week.

Regarding what you say: I never experienced any problems with Shelter’s “space” – in my mind Shelter did a phenomenal space.  Did it have the same “space” and the TU-1X? Well, I do not know how about that.  I think that FM (particularly “live” FM) might present space in fundamentally different format. My other “not broken cartridges” can’t fight with my tuner’s “space” as well. The tonal qualities of the Shelter are different story but 901 is not the tonal cartridge, not violin-type but rather a harpsichord-type cartridge. It is not tone blind but it also not tone-crazy. Instead of luxury in tone Shelter 901 throws a luxury in articulations - sort of the sound of Mravinsky’s orchestra vs. the sound of  Karel Ančerl’s orchestra…

At least it is how I see the things….

It is not a secret that I am fan of Shelter cartridges. I do not use them but I like them, though I do not know how good they are good nowadays - 10 years ego the 901 were very fine… I am not on cartridges market anymore but I got today an email pointing me to Dick Olsher’s write up about Shelter new top of the line MC Cartridge.

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/superioraudio/equipment/0809/shelter_harmony.htm

I glance the article and read the only one sentence from it: “The best performance at the frequency extremes was to be had with the Shelter 411 step-up in the system.” I am sorry; Dick Olsher, but you are a Moron. The Dick I believe made my list before:

http://www.romythecat.com/Search.aspx?Phrase=Dick%20Olsher

…and this time he did it again. The Shelter 411 is HOROBLE step-up transformer.  I was trying to make it to work for a few years but was not able to.  I have no idea where the Dick Olsher souses his fantasies…

Stitch wrote:

I agree, the Shelter transformer is nothing special, but when you really want to loose hairs, try the one from Koetsu. Well, living in a world of morons I spend - unfortunately - too much time with reading idiotic reviews from guys who get money for that nonsense. But to make it easy to understand, this stuff is from Axiss and they really make a top job with their marketing. I am pretty sure, when they would send a stone to a reviewer, they would get a rave review about it. Of course, they would not tell the reviewer that it is only a stone. They would inform him, there is a Sign. version also available and believe me, the Product of the Year Award is close...

 … it is possible that the very same Dick Olsher’s under different circumstance would be able to express perfectly lucid views. It rather that and the Dick and all those similar to him people plugged in the industry and who fancy themselves that they are “reviewers” have completely enslaved and caged audio awareness that very severely screw up this own perception. I am not taking about the pure criminals who review cartridges over voice-over-IP phone lines (it had happened) or those who just wire up a “fantasy” review (it happened as well – the Moron had no phonostage or even turntable while he wrote his cartridge review. I am taking about the normal folks would truly like to share these own view with public but they are subordinated to the occupational hazard. We can make fun of the behavior, attitude and life views of those cheap street junky-hookers but kind views about love would one express after serving a dozen men per each evening? It is not very deep and not very intellectual association but it is extremely accurate association – I know quite a few of those people. 

Also, do not be too concerned that those guys get money for that own writing nonsense. If you look at the actual money they get for those articles then you will see that the money-factor is lobule. Those people mostly “work” for the opportunity to extort money from manufacturers and for the opportunity to send manufacturers go fuck themselves when manufacturers  invoice them (happened many-many times). I do feel that Dick Olsher sincerely found that Shelter is a wonderful transformer. At the same time right now 7.30 PM and while I’ am typing this post I am sure there is a few dozen of cheap whores are blowing somebody in the fitly toilets of Greyhound Bus stations. I am sure in this mind what they do is called… love.