cartridge compliance ,effective mass , ouch my brain.

can someone please help me choose a cartridge for my arm?
i cant get my head around this cartridge compliance and effective mass equasions that i keep pulling up on google.
the arms an sme 3009 11 and ive got a very tight 40 squids budget, not much i know but its right on the hoof of crimbo so even 40 squids seems like a lot at the mo.
from what i can gather i need a cart with a high compliance although im not 100% about this. from what i can gather i think it has to be mm and not mc but any advice on what to go for would be greatly appreciated.

 

You are right in what you gather. The 3009 is a low mass design and best suited to a high compliance cart. A cart with a compliance figure above about 20µm/mN should do the job.

The best online description of the subject I've found is here

The Ortofon 510 mkII is a damned good cart for the money (usually about £39 or so - so on the mark price wise), and has a compliance of 25µm/mN (pretty high).

Googling for the figures on the SME gives a mass of 9.5 for the non detachable headshell version and 12.5 for the detachable headshell version.

Getting out my slide rule and scratching my head a lot (and hoping I'm using the right equation ). I get resonance figures of 9 and 10 Hz for the 510 on the non detachable and detachable versions respectively. Which is pretty much right on the money for where you want it to be be.

So it looks like the 510 may be the baby (can be upgraded later right up to the 540 at the swap of a stylus too).

You might consider the Goldring carts - the 1006 is is probably the only cheapy they do that'll compete with the Ortofon, but I'm guessing, I haven't heard it, but I've only heard good things about the Goldring 1000 range and will do the upgrade by stylus thing - more expensive though (60 quiddish I think). Goldring do do some much cheaper models - the Elan and Elektra - even cheaper thena the 510 - again never heard them, but I've only ever heard bad things about those.

The Goldrings have a lower compliance (16) than the Ortofon, but still within the acceptable range for the arm.

PS. I only know this stuff cos I'm a bit of a nerd like that - so far as I'm aware its all pretty theoretical - any of these carts should work fine on the SME though. and there may well be others. Audio Technica do some notable cheapy carts, but with a much lower compliance. Grado have a couple of models which'll do the job at under £40 (black and green), but they can suffer from hum from unshielded tt motors (depends very much on the deck). There are probably others too.

PPS. An MC won't work too well, they are almost certainly all too low a compliance and will probably give your arm bearings a bit of a rattle.

 

thanks uncle ants. much appreciated sir.
ive read some mixed views on the grado black , some people like it on the sme and others dont so the orfoton is winking at me at the moment. the arm is of the detatchable head shell kind. i was using an orfoton omb 10 and to be honest it sounded rubbish, lifeless as if someone had put cussions against the speakers. i did buy it from e bay though but it was new and unused so it was either faulty or just dident suit the arm. anyways it got damaged during a dusting ( oops ) and rather replace the stylus im better off getting a new cart. this hasent put me off ortofons , just the om ones ( their a bugger to aligne anyways ).

 

Rob,

Hmm. That doesn't sound right. The OM10 shouldn't sound that bad. You don't have any other probs with the arm or deck do you?

I have a spare 530 (with a few hundred hours on it, but its good) and a spare 510 stylus (with next to no hours on it). Its been lent out to other forum members before - you can borrow it if you want to give it a go. If you like it you could even buy it from me if you liked it. Its on my second deck at the moment, awaiting a new stylus from Shure for the V15 it normally sports, but I won't be using it at all until I move at the end of Jan, by which time the Shure stylus will undoubtedly have arrived. PM me if interested.

 

I think you'll find almost anything will work well so long as it's a MM. At that price the Rega Bias is a pretty fair bet as well. Not sure how much it is, but the Goldring 1006 would be a good bet as you can buy a better stylus later and move up to the 1042 later.
Like Ants though I'm puzzled by your description of the OM10. I've only heard it on a budget Pro-ject but it wasn't that bad. What are you using as a phono stage?
Your problem could be there

 

pm for you uncle ants.

yeah , i was quite suprised at the omb 10 my self , i put it down to the arm at first but after changing it for the sme ( it was a thorens tp 21 ) i heard a slight improvment but not much , certianly not the kind of improvment i would expect. i dont think the arm or the tt is at fault , i dont know of any faults with a tt that could produce such a dead sound so its either the cart or the phono stage.
my phono stage is in my amp , its a wharfedale 2030a. ive used it in the past with a rega 3 and it sounded as it should , perhaps not as good as a seperate phono stage but it wasent at all bad,i couldent fault it to be honest.
i got the cart from german e bay and it only cost about 25 euros so its no great loss. i did notice however that iyts branded an omb 10 and not an om 10 but from what i can gather the omb is a bulk stok and just dosent have the cardboard box that the om 10 comes in.
or perhaps the b stands for broken......

 

well there we go. on closer inspection to make sure everything was as it should be i only had it plugged into the mc stage and not the mm.
dunno how i managed that nor do i know for sure if this was the cause of the dead sound and without a stylus i cant find out neither , the volume seemed normal though..