As you may or may not know, I have assembled a Sansui quad hi-fi system, which was top of the line in about 1974. The final piece of the puzzle was a quad stylus and cartridge for my turntable. I ordered an Audio-technica AT14Sa catridge and an LP Gear Vivid Line ATN14 stylus... and got the wrong ones. After a bit of back and forth with the vintage parts company, I finally got the right ones! Yay!
Except...it didn't exactly work. Quad uses four channels: front right and left, and rear right and left. My front left channel was silent when I played my quad Jethro Tull Aqualung album. Wha????
I mean, these parts ain't cheap! I was in for over 200.00 just on the cartridge and stylus alone. I REALLY wanted it to work!
I did a little research and found out that the stylus needs to be weighted properly to play all four channels. You see, the diamond needle has four surfaces that have to perfectly touch their spots on the album's groove. When they don't, a channel may not play. And the channel that usually doesn't? The front left. It said that the proper weight is around .75 to 1.75 grams, with heavier being a little better. But how could I make sure it was the right weight? Do they even still sell stylus force guages?
Yes! And guess what? They're cheap! I picked one up for about 13 bucks on Amazon! Here it is!
My stylus and cartridge:
Now I know that weight looks a little heavy, but in reality the number was jumping around a bit while I tried to take the picture. It's right about 1.75g.
And did it work? I put the album back on and all four channels jumped to life! Success!
Now I only have two quad albums, the Jethro Tull album which is CD-4 and a Greatest Hits of Earth Wind and Fire album which is SQ. All quad formats are not created equal, with CD-4 being the best, but SQ being still good. Different companies embraced different formats. Fortunately my receiver will play them all!
Anyway, now it's time to start buying that media! Including quad reel to reel (more on that later)!
Until next time, keep searching for treasure!
Hunh. I never knew that you needed a quad stylus to play a quad recording. Makes perfect sense, I just never thought about it before. (I never had any quad LPs.) Touchy little devils, aren't they!
ReplyDeleteYou have a gearshift on your turntable?! Or maybe it's a little screwdriver that got jammed into a slot and you don't know how to get it out? ;-)
This particular hobby of yours sounds pricey! But good luck with it. Thanks, Stu.
Thanks!
DeleteYeah, until I stumbled into this quest (almost accidently) I really didn't know anything about it either! If I hadn't happened to buy a quad reel to reel, and then a quad receiver to match it, I never woukd have gone down that road!
Anyway, the expense has been spread out over a decade and a half or so, so it hasn't been too bad.
The "gear shift" is the "on-off" lever! All the way forward is "off." One position back is "On," which makes the platter spin. But if you want to drop the tonearm on a record, you have to pull it all the way forward to "Play." The problem is to use the force meter, you have to hold it over the spinning platter and drop the tonearm down on it. It's even harder while trying to take a picture of it, lol!