[OMNIFEX]

Originally Posted by odub

Interesting; I had no idea Pickering made a disco needle but that makes sense given the long history of the company.

That is a very old design that was around when Disco was in the limelight. It is too ancient in the eyes who are just discovering turntables. Stanton and Pickering are interchangeable even though Stanton is classed as the better brand of the two.

As for why you would make cartridges louder, my understanding is that the higher the output, the less gain you need to apply on the mixer to raise the volume of a particular record. Among other advantages, that would lessen the possibility of feedback, especially in a loud club/discotheque environment.

All mixing boards offer enough gain to make up any loss in volume if a recording is too low. This is why mixers offer gain knobs in addition to a fader on each channel plus a master level whereas a home consumer amplifier/receiver offers a fixed level. Feedback is based on vibration, which would stem back to the turntable’s mechanical structure.

I never bought the Ortofon for DJing purposes. I was told that it offered the best bang for the buck in terms of sound quality and cost. I know record labels who master their reissues from vinyl using a Nightclub E and producers who sample using them. That's why I'm perplexed as to why I'd be getting such obvious distortion using the one I have now. I'll keep playing around this week and seeing what I can figure out.

I am sorry to say, you fell into the “me too” scenario. Many buy items not based on research. They purchased the product because someone they admire owns it. There is nothing wrong with that. However, when that person (which the previous owner admired) purchased a product because someone they admired owns it and, that person (which the previous owner admired) purchased the item because someone they admired uses it, no one can tell you why they are using the product other than so and so uses it.

Ortofon’s Concord offered a unique look with a good marketing strategy. Those are the two things that will draw the average consumer’s attention. With a high price point, it was classed as a high line cartridge in the 1980’s in nightclubs despite having a reputation of damaging the tone arm on the Technics 1200.

Of course, these days, with so many DJs using Serato or similar time-coded vinyl + DJ software systems, you can usually get away with using far more inferior cartridges.

Now you are catching on. I would imagine those time coded records are nothing more than a saw-tooth waves. Instead of listening to a bunch of manufactures marketing their work, research the product thoroughly (read the manual, service manual, schematic what have you) and ask questions before you buy.

Cheers!