Lets´say - Grace club!

[autobayer]

Brothers (no sisters around, I guess).
I have just purchased a classical Grace F-8 for my 75/S - Jelco Arm. It will ship from Australia these days and I wonder what your experiences with those famed carts are.
Any tips - specially for re-tipping and styluses.
And what are your favourite arms for them, if there´s a simple "them".
I´m looking forward to your replies.
Thanks
Chris

[maatchka]

I have a few of the F9 variety. The ruby paratrace is a great idea for the F9 and I suppose for the F8 as well. It is my understanding that the F9 is of a lower compliance and will work with most arms. I have used mine in the Schick, for example. Surprisingly, it was a better match than with my Audio Note/Rega arm. Also, the Grace family lends itself to using different bodies. I have one in aluminum and one on the way with ebony. Great bass and tonality! The aluminum body has done for the Grace what the UWE and the Midas have done for the Denon 103 delivering a really rich and substantial sound. I have yet to try them loaded at 100k, which is recommended.

[autobayer]

Hi Jim.
Thanks a lot for your reply - have been away for a few days.
I must admit, I read a lot about that ruby paratrace but missed the beginning: who does is, what is it in fact and how much does it cost?
Different bodies seems a great idea - did you do it yourself? And since you have a variety of the Graces - could you describe them for me / us?
Thanks a lot.
Chris

[Paul]

This thread is of great interest to me. I had a Rega deck with a grace 707 arm and F9E cartridge for twenty years. When replacement styli became unavailable (and before I knew about re-tipping) I stupidly allowed a dealer to keep my old Grace body when I bought a different replacement cartridge from him.

Recently a friend gave me his F9 cartridge body with F9E stylus that needs a re-tip. I also still have an F9E stylus with a bent cantilever (my daughter trying to play music when she was one year old, she's 26 now). My styli have the aluminium cantilever. I was thinking that the stylus with the bent cantilever might be a candidate for a ruby/paratrace replacement and the stylus with the worn tip would just get the paratrace.

The only concern I've had about a ruby cantilever replacement is that the stylus assembly must have something about it that makes it difficult to work on or reproduce. Otherwise I can't understand why no-one makes replacement styli for Grace cartridges.

[maatchka]

Paul, No need for concern with the stylus replacement. I have had 2 done and they work great, both the Expert paratrace and the Soundsmith optimized line contact. To be sure, the ruby cantilever lifts the performance considerably as well as lowering the noise floor......perhaps the only weakness of the original stylus on the F9E. I have a copy of the glowing review of the Grace F9E given by Absolute Sound in 1980 which rated it higher than the Koetsu Rosewood Signature except in surface noise. I think that was prior to Grace offering their own ruby model. I owned the same Rega setup that you had back in the early 80s, Planar 3, 707, F9E. Arm and cartridge floated off in the ether of yesterday.

Andy, The aluminum bodied Grace was purchased that way. The seller included the original plastic body which offers no rigidity whatsoever! Needless to say, the aluminum is revelatory in it's improvement of the cartridges performance. The seller had purchased the body through a hi-fi shop in Montreal that had done a limited run of them in the early 80s. Maybe one of our machinist comrades would be inclined to do something like this?

Also, I just received the Ebony body but have not tested it out yet. the work on this one was done by Lencoheaven's Steve and it looks really promising. I will update as to its performance sometime soon. GREAT JOB, Steve!

A few pics of the ebony, the aluminum and the original plastic body.

[rfgumby]

Which Steve?  Steve from St.Paul Steve?  If so, he's been holding out on us...

[maatchka]

You bet, it's that Steve! We go back many years to a time when black discs were king and we had no money for hi-fi, just records.   

[rfgumby]

You bet, it's that Steve! We go back many years to a time when black discs were king and we had no money for hi-fi, just records.   

Ahh, that must be the ebony body project he had mentioned.  I was talking to him yesterday, I should have asked him about it.

In any case, glad your project has been successful!

[Paul]

It just shows how easily we can be fooled Maatchka. I'd always assumed, because the cartridge comes packaged on a billet of aluminium, that the silver cartridge body surround was also aluminium.

Not much information for Chris though. I'm sure I can remember other members mentioning that they have, or have had, the F-8. My specs sheet for the F-9 series does say "The cartridge body is based on the excellent and proven F-8 design, but has been improved by the reduction of impedance and tip mass to allow reproduction to over 60 KHz", but this is the only information I have on the F-8. I think the F-8 was 'specced up' to the F-9 because of the introduction of quadrophonic LPs but we can assume the character of the cartridge will be similar. The F-9 may not even be an improvement in the frequency range that we actually hear.

I still don't understand why there have never been aftermarket styli for the Grace cartridges.

[maatchka]

I should add that the only thing flimsy about the F9 is the outer shell, or casing. The metal surrounding the actual workings is pretty substantial.

I still don't understand why there have never been aftermarket styli for the Grace cartridges.

I have not compared the stylus assembly to many other cartridges other than Empire and the rod may be a bit more sophisticated than the Empire. Not sure really. It does fit in a more robust fashion though. Maybe that's it?

I am not too sure about the info on cartridgedb.com regarding the Grace cartridges. They list the compliance as 12 while the sheets supplied with my cartridge list it as 25. The F8 they list as more compliant still at something like 30. I do find it odd that the Grace performs well in my Schick tonearm which should be way too heavy, but it tracks great and sounds great. In fact, both better than my Rega rb250 Audio Note derivative arm. Go figure?

[autobayer]

Thanks for helping 
In trying to get a picture of the different Graces, I had the same result - as Jim adds in his reply. The data don´t seem to help much. My F8 that will be here in a few days still is completely original. I will use it in my Jelco Arm on the 75 / S - middleweight champion, should work good. As soon as it needs a rebuild, I will probably send it to Expert since this is customs free. Surface noise reduction is a big issue. Does anyone have the absolute sound article on the F9?
Cheers guys
Chris

It just shows how easily we can be fooled Maatchka. I'd always assumed, because the cartridge comes packaged on a billet of aluminium, that the silver cartridge body surround was also aluminium.

Not much information for Chris though. I'm sure I can remember other members mentioning that they have, or have had, the F-8. My specs sheet for the F-9 series does say "The cartridge body is based on the excellent and proven F-8 design, but has been improved by the reduction of impedance and tip mass to allow reproduction to over 60 KHz", but this is the only information I have on the F-8. I think the F-8 was 'specced up' to the F-9 because of the introduction of quadrophonic LPs but we can assume the character of the cartridge will be similar. The F-9 may not even be an improvement in the frequency range that we actually hear.

I still don't understand why there have never been aftermarket styli for the Grace cartridges.

[maatchka]

Does anyone have the absolute sound article on the F9?

Chris,

I do have a copy of the article from issue 17, 1980. As a synopsis, here is the Editors choice:

"***The grace F9E Perhaps the best moving magnet ever made, and certainly something the Brothers Shure should hear, since the cartridge has a brilliantly convincing ability to portray the sound stage in all its dimensions and a harmonic accuracy better than all of the moving coils. The lack of background noise that accounts for the "purity" of the moving coil sound is, however, not equalled here, so there is the slightest sense of grain, although the Grace does possess a remarkable freedom from veiling (unlike many moving iron designs). Tracking is better than the Koetsu, but not so good as the very best. at the price, about $160, it is, without a doubt, the maximum most-for-the-money in cartridges today."

Absolute Sound divided cartridges into 6 categories, of which the F9E was in Category A along with:
The Mark Levinson
The Koetsu
The Grace F9E
The Linn Asak
The Dynavector Ruby
The EMT
The van Alstine/Sonus Dimension Five
The Grado Signature IIIa Revised

[Paul]

I have a question about the stylus I have with the bent cantilever. The finger grip is a different shape to any other Grace stylus I've seen. I can't remember if this is the stylus that came with the cartridge or the stylus that I bought in grace packaging as a replacement (my daughter bent them both). I would just like to know if anyone else has seen a finger grip shaped like this and if it has any significance? It has the correct Grace italic 'E' printed on the top front surface, the same as the other stylus I have with the normal curved type finger grip.

[maatchka]

Paul,

My replacement stylus looks exactly like that. The other one looks better, but for some reason they look different.

[autobayer]

Jim.
Amazing, thanks.
As Lenco-Heaven´s Jeremy put in a long phone call, I am an ebony type. So I´m most interested in that ebony shell. Since you didn´t make, could you describe it for me? How is it done? Is the cart slid in there, glued or anything you could see or maybe feel?
Thanks!
Chris

Chris,

I do have a copy of the article from issue 17, 1980. As a synopsis, here is the Editors choice:

"***The grace F9E Perhaps the best moving magnet ever made, and certainly something the Brothers Shure should hear, since the cartridge has a brilliantly convincing ability to portray the sound stage in all its dimensions and a harmonic accuracy better than all of the moving coils. The lack of background noise that accounts for the "purity" of the moving coil sound is, however, not equalled here, so there is the slightest sense of grain, although the Grace does possess a remarkable freedom from veiling (unlike many moving iron designs). Tracking is better than the Koetsu, but not so good as the very best. at the price, about $160, it is, without a doubt, the maximum most-for-the-money in cartridges today."

Absolute Sound divided cartridges into 6 categories, of which the F9E was in Category A along with:
The Mark Levinson
The Koetsu
The Grace F9E
The Linn Asak
The Dynavector Ruby
The EMT
The van Alstine/Sonus Dimension Five
The Grado Signature IIIa Revised
[/quote]