Cartridges with brush good for subsonic problem?

[itsme]

I have a little bit of an issue with speakers. My old Energy 22's are very sensitive to subsonic frequencies. From what I read it was a design tradeoff they made to get the impressively (for a 7 inch) deep bass that these speakers have. Anyhow, on my Ariston, I get a lot of pumping of the woofers.
I have done some reading on the subject and seen some recommendations for a cartridge with a brush to help minimize this. Was thinking of either a Shure V15-V or one of the top range Stantons (881?).
Anyone have any thoughts on these? Recommendations?

[Glen B]

I have a little bit of an issue with speakers. My old Energy 22's are very sensitive to subsonic frequencies. From what I read it was a design tradeoff they made to get the impressively (for a 7 inch) deep bass that these speakers have. Anyhow, on my Ariston, I get a lot of pumping of the woofers.
I have done some reading on the subject and seen some recommendations for a cartridge with a brush to help minimize this. Was thinking of either a Shure V15-V or one of the top range Stantons (881?).
Anyone have any thoughts on these? Recommendations?

The brushes may help to damp some infrasonic energy but your best bet is a preamp with an infrasonic filter.

[BRANDONH]

I have a little bit of an issue with speakers. My old Energy 22's are very sensitive to subsonic frequencies. From what I read it was a design tradeoff they made to get the impressively (for a 7 inch) deep bass that these speakers have. Anyhow, on my Ariston, I get a lot of pumping of the woofers.
I have done some reading on the subject and seen some recommendations for a cartridge with a brush to help minimize this. Was thinking of either a Shure V15-V or one of the top range Stantons (881?).
Anyone have any thoughts on these? Recommendations?
Glen B is correct you need a rumble filter or an amp with a subsonic filter and set it to 20
here is a fairly affordable rumble Filter http://www.kabusa.com/rf1.htm#CTOP
http://www.kabusa.com/gif/Escorts.jpg

[Woochifer]

The Stanton longhair brushes are purportedly for dust pickup and static discharge, whereas the brush that Shure mounts on their carts functions as a stabilizer that assist with tracking. As others have said, neither will do much for the subsonic rumbling -- that's just an artifact of the vinyl medium. The short of it is that in order to filter out the subsonic information, you need a subsonic filter. Aside from add-on devices or going with a crossover or subwoofer, you could also look into vintage preamps/integrateds. When vinyl was king, subsonic filtering was a very common feature on preamps, integrateds, and receivers. And even now, subwoofer amps will often include a filter to minimize the cone movement below the tuned port frequency (the point at which the driver unloads and no longer has the back pressure from the port available to dampen the cone movement).

[dean_martin]

The Bellari VP129 phono pre has a rumble filter that cuts off low frequencies at 20Hz (this is where the tech guys jump in and correct my ignorance, if needed). I haven't needed it at all, but it's there and I guess it works. Anyhow, this tube phono pre was $199 and was supposed to go up to $249, but probably can still be found for the old price. It sounds great in my system and should work with any mm cart and most high-output mcs.

[E-Stat]

Anyhow, on my Ariston, I get a lot of pumping of the woofers.
I would begin by looking at the cause of the subsonics. I, too have an Ariston (RD-11s) and do not get subsonic garbage. What arm and cartridge are you presently using? Perhaps your combination is a poor match in terms of resonant frequency.

rw

[JohnMichael]

It is important for the compliance of a cartridge work well with the tonearm's mass. A high compliance cart in a heavy arm as well as a low compliance cart in a light arm will cause subsonic problems. High Fidelity mag used to print a graph that showed a range of compliances and tonearm masses and the low frequency resonance they will generate. If memory serves 8-10 HZ is the ideal you want to acheive for good bass and minimal excitement by warps. I will try to find that graph.

[itsme]

Well, I think I may have figured out one of the issues...
Looks like the suspension in my cartridge has collapsed. Only tracking at 1.8 grams, but the cantilever is almost pushed up against the body of the cartridge. Probably not good for the setup....
I have a Empire 4000S and a AT 140L (?) sitting around somewhere. Maybe time to try one of those. I think the AT was designed for a low mass arm. Maybe the Empire?

[JohnMichael]

Anyone interested in choosing the correct cartridge for their tonearm for reduced subsonic problems here is a link that may be useful. www.theanalogdept.com
Then click on Alignment FAQ when that opens choose Cartridge/Arm Matching.

[BRANDONH]

Anyone interested in choosing the correct cartridge for their tonearm for reduced subsonic problems here is a link that may be useful. www.theanalogdept.com
Then click on Alignment FAQ when that opens choose Cartridge/Arm Matching.

Thanks for the link grat analog site!

[emaidel]

I wanted to chime in here on the merits of the brush on Pickering and Stanton cartrdiges. I was the National Sales Manager for Pickering in the late 70's, and rejoined the organization throughout the 90's as the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Stanton, until the company was sold to a new owner in Florida.

The brush used on both cartrdiges was a personal "thing" of mine, as I'd never had a problem using it when I first joined Pickering, and was astonished at how the audio salespeople across the entire U.S. felt it nothing short of an audio travesty. I asked the engineers of the company/companies to either provide useful data as to the value of the brush assemblies, or to do without it all together if need be. The result was a pamphlet, "The Do's and the Don'ts of the Dustamatic/Longhair Brush." It was quite an eye-opener.

The biggest problem with the brush assemblies was that most audio salesmen refused to read instructions, believing they "knew better.'' As such, few if any realized the need to add an additional 1 gram to both the tracking force and anti-skating settings to compensate for the brush assembly, which weighed 1 gram in and of itself. Properly set, the brush never interfered with tracking, and offered some very real and tangible benefits.

The brush was never designed to clean a dirty record, but rather, to help keep a clean record clean. The bristles were deliberately designed to be too large to fit into a record's groove, and their rubbing action against the record's surface created a small static charge that worked like a mini vacuum cleaner. The design of the all-metal cartridge body, with a ground strap attached to one of the ground pins effectively discharged this static to ground without any consequence.

The brush also reduced low frequency resonance (not rumble) and, to me this was best of all, dynamically stablized the tonearm to dramatically improve the tracking and playback of warped records. Indeed, a given Pickering or Stanton cartridge, set to track at 1 1/4 grams without the brush assembly that wouldn't play certain warped records, tracked and played those records flawlessly when the asembly was in place, and the proper gram/anti-skate settings were used.

At one point in time, Discwasher introduced an add-on "Dynamic Stablizer" that the user attached to the front of his/her tonearm, and in my discussions with the folks at Discwasher (I was with Pickering at the time) they readily acknowledged that PIckering and Stanton knew what they were doing with the brush assemblies.

Unfortunately, as the mind-set of Pickering and Stanton (until its sale in the late 90's) was never to reveal anything technical due to an irrational fear of giving away trade secrets, little useful information was ever given out about what made any of the cartridges, or the brush asemblies "tick."

'thought the folks logged onto this site would find this interesting and useful.

[Glen B]

I wanted to chime in here on the merits of the brush on Pickering and Stanton cartrdiges. I was the National Sales Manager for Pickering in the late 70's, and rejoined the organization throughout the 90's as the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Stanton, until the company was sold to a new owner in Florida. .............................

..........'thought the folks logged onto this site would find this interesting and useful.

Nice "history lesson." During the '80s and early '90s I used the Shure M97HE (if I correctly remember the model #) that had the Dynamic Stablizer ) followed by Stanton 881S, 881S mkII and 981HZS, all with the longhair brush and can attest to their effectiveness.

[royphil345]

Your problem is possibly being made worse by less than ideal turntable isolation. Would suspect this if the problem becomes disproportionately worse at higher volumes.

Have also found that the cartridges with the brushes / dynamic stabilizers DO help control subsonic noise. The Shures seem to have a firmer suspension than most other high compliance cartridges to begin with, which I believe helps.

The KAB rumble filter is very good and also a way to go.

I really didn't care for the sound of the V-15VxMR. Like the tonal balance of the M97xE better. Although, many audiophiles would probably find it to be not quite revealing enough. Would be tempted to try the Stanton over the V-15VxMR. Haven't heard the Stanton though.

Actually, If anyone wants a V-15VxMR cartridge body (no stylus) let me know and it's yours.

[royphil345]

Free V-15VxMR cartridge body is gone.

[itsme]

Thanks for the awesome info!
Was just wondering what recommendations you had in regards to the Stanton models. I have heard some very good things re. the 881. How would it compare to the ubiquitous Shure V15?
Thanks for any help you can provide!



I wanted to chime in here on the merits of the brush on Pickering and Stanton cartrdiges. I was the National Sales Manager for Pickering in the late 70's, and rejoined the organization throughout the 90's as the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Stanton, until the company was sold to a new owner in Florida.

The brush used on both cartrdiges was a personal "thing" of mine, as I'd never had a problem using it when I first joined Pickering, and was astonished at how the audio salespeople across the entire U.S. felt it nothing short of an audio travesty. I asked the engineers of the company/companies to either provide useful data as to the value of the brush assemblies, or to do without it all together if need be. The result was a pamphlet, "The Do's and the Don'ts of the Dustamatic/Longhair Brush." It was quite an eye-opener.

The biggest problem with the brush assemblies was that most audio salesmen refused to read instructions, believing they "knew better.'' As such, few if any realized the need to add an additional 1 gram to both the tracking force and anti-skating settings to compensate for the brush assembly, which weighed 1 gram in and of itself. Properly set, the brush never interfered with tracking, and offered some very real and tangible benefits.

The brush was never designed to clean a dirty record, but rather, to help keep a clean record clean. The bristles were deliberately designed to be too large to fit into a record's groove, and their rubbing action against the record's surface created a small static charge that worked like a mini vacuum cleaner. The design of the all-metal cartridge body, with a ground strap attached to one of the ground pins effectively discharged this static to ground without any consequence.

The brush also reduced low frequency resonance (not rumble) and, to me this was best of all, dynamically stablized the tonearm to dramatically improve the tracking and playback of warped records. Indeed, a given Pickering or Stanton cartridge, set to track at 1 1/4 grams without the brush assembly that wouldn't play certain warped records, tracked and played those records flawlessly when the asembly was in place, and the proper gram/anti-skate settings were used.

At one point in time, Discwasher introduced an add-on "Dynamic Stablizer" that the user attached to the front of his/her tonearm, and in my discussions with the folks at Discwasher (I was with Pickering at the time) they readily acknowledged that PIckering and Stanton knew what they were doing with the brush assemblies.

Unfortunately, as the mind-set of Pickering and Stanton (until its sale in the late 90's) was never to reveal anything technical due to an irrational fear of giving away trade secrets, little useful information was ever given out about what made any of the cartridges, or the brush asemblies "tick."

'thought the folks logged onto this site would find this interesting and useful.