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RE: Kenwood KD550 with broken Shure V15xmr stylus

Posted by mr.bear (A) on January 11, 2018 at 23:26:35

In Reply to: Kenwood KD550 with broken Shure V15xmr stylus posted by wcelliot on January 11, 2018 at 19:53:28:

The mighty restroom-floor-finish KD550 is a nice DD table. I feel however that your limiting "link in the chain" (of vinyl playback) is the arm. It is decent but not at the level of the rest of the table. I helped a friend set one of these up with a Grace G707 arm and a TOTL Acutex, IIRC. This was back in the golden age, and it was very sweet. [As Dave Chappelle said: "You have to Google sh*t I lived through..."] The stock arm is medium to high mass and would probably most enjoy a medium compliance MM.

That being said, you don't want to overkill with the cartridge-- it should be one that the turntable and your phono stage can handle well but whose performance potential is more-or-less matched, if you see what I mean. If you chose a $1000 cart, the Kenwood^^2 might not deliver all the potential you paid for- it's somewhat of an economic argument. Your preamp also provides an upper bound on how much goodness you can hear from a cartridge.

Just guessing, you might get best cost/benefit at less than $500, much above that and you're bucking diminishing-returns, no disrespect intended. That's painting with a very broad brush though, you decide how fine a cartridge is fine enough...

The current point of entry moving-coil cartridge is probably a Denon DL103- it might perform really well on the Kenwood. I've had a couple of these and they sound quite lively, good octave-to-octave balance, and low susceptability to noise. But what about the step-up? I've had a dozen preamps and found the on-board MC stages are sometimes good, but never match your MC crtridge just right. Someone has a Marcoff PPA head amp for sale in the trader section (no affiliation, etc.) which I found had good synergy with the Denons. I'm trying to suggest simply that matching a booster to an MC to a preamp can be a costly headache.

My experience is mostly with "vintage" older cartridges, but the Ortofon Blue (under $300) is popular with the VA crowd, 20CU is good, and the output at 5.5mV is nice and high. You might still find the Audio-Technica AT440 - almost a reference standard- under $300, Nice sound, although it has been replaced by a new series A-T cartridges. That it's a little "bright" might work well with the KEF's, which may be a little "polite." I'd be really tempted to try the new low-priced Clearaudio MM, around $250 bucks- never head it but their high-zoot MC's are superb. Good luck!

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