Graham D Posted November 1, 2010 Posted November 1, 2010 This query is directed to Nak Mad who has very kindly supplied me with the above cartridge to use on some of my dodgy records to save the Denon DL160. Chatting on Vinyl Engine about how well it seems to perform on my heavyweight Thorens TP16 arm, the guys there had never heard of this cartridge, claiming it was never available in the UK,USA or Europe. I am rather curious to learn of its lineage/origin, and since in my opinion it performs so well, why it had such restricted availability. I have put this on the forum rather than a private message as others may be interested also. Regards Graham.
Nak-Mad Posted November 3, 2010 Posted November 3, 2010 G'day Graham, Apologies, must have been sleeping . If my memory serves me right, that 10XE 'arrived' with me in the late 80's. It is certainly not a common Ortofon beast in NZ.. (that honour goes to the tray sales FF-15XE ...when every Hifi shop had them by the polystyene trayful!!.). Again, from memory it was also an OEM fit on the Thorens TD166 of around that vintage...( probably, that would be in a TP11 arm), before the ubiquitous OM10 was installed everywhere. I'm not sure of the geneology, other than to say that this cartridge has a tighter tracking spec at 1.7-2.3g than the FF-15XE (1.5-3.0g), and that could be because of the OEM fitment, where the suspension was tuned to match the Thorens arm rather than having to use a 'take on all-comers' set up... at least that is a better story. I am surprised at the comments on 'The Vinyl Engine', as this cartridge is relatively well recognised in the US as a good budget performer, and should also be known in Europe through the Thorens connection if my premise is correct. Perhaps not the UK at that time (late 80's again), where the preference was to fit your own arm, and a Thorens OEM arm would have been regarded with some disdain. cheers, NM
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