Ceramic Or Magnetic Cartridge For My Regis?

[continental55]

  Hi I have a rockola regis 1488 and would like to know which cartridge you find works best

It has the stereo amp with the mono sterero hybrid selector

Also I think this amp has a built in preamp? would I need an external preamp depending on cartridge?

thanks for any input.

[jukenorman]

This is a difficult (or impossible?) question to answer! The best cartridge could well be the ceramic because that's how Rock-Ola designed it? If the amp. is original, to use a magnetic cartridge would require an additional pre-amp. It's likely without question that you could squeeze extra performance by using a magnetic but you would have to also pay attention to the record playing side, use the best turntable motor grommets you can find, make sure the motor is perfect etc etc in order to reduce noise. And then you might find that you are being let down by the loudspeakers!

Norman.

[continental55]

Oh I didn’t realize that a magnetic would pick up more machine noise.
The bass just seems weak but that may be a wire wrong somewhere
I have 3 wires from tonearm left right and bridged ground from stylus on third wire (hope that’s right) a varco cartridge with plastic clip

[jukenorman]

I'm not familiar with the Varco cartridge, I don't do much with ceramics these days and if I do, I just use the mega cheap ones. From comments that I see on other forums, the quality of ceramics seems to be very variable. The obvious question, if the bass is weak, is the phasing correct but if the two grounds on the cartridge are bridged, then it cannot really be wrong - unless the speakers are crossed. You could try reversing the wiring to one speaker to check.

Norman.