Stanton/Pickering

[richard]

XV 15 seem to have shot up in last year. Saw them going last week for nearly £100 and £49 for stylus.

Note: XV15 is just a cartridge body. I figure that you know about this, but want to restate this/ There's no true cartridge with this name. There used to be a sizeable range of different styli for it, each one with its own number. A few of those needles sold for more than the 49 quid you mentioned, and some were cheaper. You have to know which is which in order to evaluate the going prices. Most of the cost of a complete cartridge is often in its stylus, which is the most intricate and precise part of the entire package.

High prices can be reasonable if the needles are authentic NOS. Many needle sellers conceal that what they're offering aren't originals or are not exact replacements for what you were expecting. Often the surprise is nasty, but sometimes, you can luck out. I'm using an aftermarket "one size fits all" imitation right now to screen dirty records; it just happens to have the characteristics that I wanted. It's a fake NOS from 1980.

[lexi]

 Yes Richard . It was the XV-15 with the D625 stylus I meant. Got these on offer about two years ago on Ebay Uk. Genuine Pickering. I think they have just went back up to a realistic price. They were giving them away man !     Cartridge and two spare styli for £60   

[richard]

Well, now I know who you bought them from. So, no matter how you indicate the parts, what you bought was a XV15/625E cartridge with a spare D625 stylus. Very nice to own.

[wer]

The customs man decided to ignore the parcel, so my D2000-Q arrived from New Zealand  
Looking through a lot of (extended   ) posts did not really help me a lot concerning the UV-15/... cartridge, for which this stylus is intended.
All i found was
350 mH inductance and
750 Ohm resistance,
but no indication whether it is moving iron or moving magnet (Sm/Co?). Since i don't have the Stanton Bible yet, possibly somebody might be willing to help me with that question?

[GP49]

The UV-15 cartridge is moving iron. 

[wer]

Thank you Gene.
Back to the drawing board, there must be a significant difference between the UV15 and the XV15 body, the XV15 with this needle won't track properly even at normal recording levels 
Seller claims it can be used with the XSV-3000, but that is not on since it is a moving iron stylus.
Will be looking for a UV-15. Life is hard 

[GP49]

Tracking will have nothing to do with the cartridge body.  It's a factor only of mechanical traits such as compliance and cantilever/tip mass, which aftermarket stylus makers frequently get wrong.

A UV-15 body will be difficult to find.

[richard]

Gene wrote,

A UV-15 body will be difficult to find.

Man, you said it. I don't think I've ever seen one. In hindsight, it seems that although there was so much hoopla at the time, CD-4 almost came and went in the blink of an eye.

Zooooooooooom! (What was that?).

"It's like sitting in the middle of the orchestra." As is so often the case in hi-fi, the advertising people weren't much for reality checks. Talking from experience, I'll say that the best place to listen to an orchestra is not in the middle of it, but out in the audience. Stereo's just fine, and always was. Well, sometimes it's hard to get the sound stage right without a bit more.

I spent a few hours this morning adding the quadraphonic hardware to my Stanton/Pickering book. I've still got about one day before it's in stone and starts going to the binder. I dragged out all the company literaure and pulled it together. It's outside the book's date range (Stanton's "Golden Age"), but because there was a technology lineage forward from the quad cartridges into the 80s, I decided to link it all together. I put in the relevant specifications. The book's chock full of specs for the lesser-known products (specs that are virtually impossible to find anywhere) wherever I have specs to put in. Just about everything's meaningfully covered.

Thinking back on the whole phenomenon, it seems to me that CD4 was really Audio Technica's thing. Those few who chose to get on board were playing catch-up, and by the time they got it right, the fad was already over.

[wer]

It's a factor only of mechanical traits such as compliance and cantilever/tip mass, which aftermarket stylus makers frequently get wrong.

A UV-15 body will be difficult to find.

Original Pickering D2000-Q. Will have a look at the needle under the microscope today. The strange thing is that it not just audibly mistracks, when it hits a highly modulated part it skips 1/4 - 1/2" to the inside of the disc and continues

[Wout]

It's a factor only of mechanical traits such as compliance and cantilever/tip mass, which aftermarket stylus makers frequently get wrong.

I have some notes on these (not necessarily correct), assuming the UV15/2000Q = 780/Q and UV15/2400Q = 784/DQ:

UV15/2000Q, 780/Q
compliance 15 x 10-6 cm/dyne
DCR 750 Ohm, L 350 mH
VTF 2g ± 1g
freq. response 10 - 45kHz
output: 3.8mV ± 2dB (@5.5cm/s)
channel separation: 30dB

UV15/2400Q, 780/4DQ
compliance: 40 x 10-6 cm/dyne
DCR 675 Ohm, L 290 mH
VTF 2g ± ½g
freq: 10 - 50kHz
output: 3.3mV ± 2dB (@5.5cm/s)
channel separation: 35dB

So the D2000Q/Q is a much stiffer stylus than the D2400Q/4DQ but there isn't much difference in VTF. Odd?

[flavio81]

Well, now I know who you bought them from. So, no matter how you indicate the parts, what you bought was a XV15/625E cartridge with a spare D625 stylus. Very nice to own.

Since long ago i've been offered a new XV15/750E for about $40. I know it's a great price but i am reluctant to buy it since i have a good combination with a XSV cartridge body with a Stanton conical; and the XSV is supposed to be a better, later technology cartridge... Plus the cantilever on the D750E stylus looks noticeably thicker, something that suggest me the moving mass of this cartridge is higher than the one in the 881 or in more modern cartridges.

What do you think, Richard? Is there a place for the XV15/681 for a guy who is happy with the XSV?

[richard]

Flavio, your question is a tough call.
First, the over a long period of time, the 750 stylus was made in three different sizes. My 750 styli all have normal late Stanton conroured tube sizes, whereas Gene has reported that his 750 needle has a klutzy-looking straight tube cantilever. I wouldn't dismiss a Stanton cantilever because it has a low-life appearance. The company was into aviation-type metalurgy, advanced electro-plating, and other secrets that they applied. However, my gut sense is that the contoured design was better. Unfortunately, I can't compare them because of all my Stanton needles, I don't recall having seen any that are straight tubes. And I don't think that Gene has talked about his needle's sound or its condition.

You see where this is going to go...

I have many Stanton and Pickering needles. Some of them, I have only listened to briefly. I have three of these needles, and unfortunately, I cannot confirm which of the latter two they are. The tips that I have are either .3 x .7 or .2 x .7. The first ones were much larger. The bearing radius was, if I remember correctly, .9 mil.

When I listened to it, I was impressed with the listenability of the needle. The recording is a magnificent British brass transcription of Pictures at an Exhibition. The brass rendition was spot-on. The dynamics were excellent. I didn't give it a real workout, but to this musician's ears, the rendition was "yes!" So, if you want to study the ups and downs of Stanton's products, I'd say, if the price is right, why not buy it? Of course, there's the issue of money, I realize.

The samarium cobalt cartridges were certainly Stanton's finest performers. But there are times when you need to play those defective and early records that I'm always talking about, and at those times, the 680/681/XV15 models come in very handy, and some of them certainly impressed the critics of their time. Let's distinguish this way: the samarium cobalt "group" are aimed at maximum information extraction, whereas the earlier bodies and their styli are aimed at practical solutions. This is a big distinction. I'm at the point with my Stanton-Pickering Cartridge Handbook where I've just finished the final "let's just squeeze in this one more improvement." I just took the final photo for the  book. It's a picture of Stanton's cartridge bodies and there's almost nothing in the picture! But for the period that my book covers, Stanton made more than 130 different needles for them!

So, when it comes to versatility, nothing in the world matched these brands, and this is what makes them so enticing (to me, anyway). Even the lowly 500/V15 can perk up with the right needle, so even this cartridge can be a surprisingly useful tool. You listen to enough of these, and you really get that the sound of a cartridge is really the sound of its stylus.

[wer]

Thanks Wout.
The needle looks fine under the microscope, but the cantilever is a about 2 mm longer than any of the other styli and the finger grip is completely different as well. Plan to change to a lighter arm in the near future to see whether it then performs any better.

Saying that it will be difficult to find,  there happens to be a UV-15 on ebay.com right now, but sadly the seller has a list of restrictions and "do nots" longer than the description, and unsurprisingly will not sell to anybody outside the States  

Edit: even the possibility to send a message is blocked 

[flavio81]

Thanks for your answer. I think i'll pass on the XV15 since i'm very happy with the XSV+89AL stylus, that heavy-tracking conical stylus serves me well for less-than perfect records and sounds actually very good (i since have sold my Pickering V15 away). For the best reproduction possible i already have the Panasonic strain-gauge that is on another league altogether.

Those XSV/881 bodies really have potential.

[GP49]

Thanks Wout.
The needle looks fine under the microscope, but the cantilever is a about 2 mm longer than any of the other styli and the finger grip is completely different as well. Plan to change to a lighter arm in the near future to see whether it then performs any better.

Sadly, since what you have isn't a Pickering UV-15 stylus at all, but a third party's idea of what might work with a UV-15 body, I would attach zero significance to the way that stylus performs, as being indicative of how a real Pickering UV-15 would perform.  In addition, since nobody really knows WHO makes all these imitation third-party styli, no matter what the source or brand, there is no assurance that someone who buys a third-party UV-15 stylus from anybody else would have the same experience you are having.