Hey Channel Fernando from skyfi audio. Today we're
going to play around with the techniques SL 1500c and push the limits of its performance. This 1500
C is turntable retails at around $1300 bucks and what I've done is mount a Clearaudio Goldfinger
cartridge to it. Now that cartridge retails at $17,,500 so we're going to see what we can get
away with and essentially going to play this record is see here in the background I'll tell
you a bit more about it and play it for you guys, at least one track so you can hear what sort of
performance results we get from it. So hang in there it's going to be around 13 minutes and
we'll jump right in. So if you're wondering why we're doing this I get a lot of calls from
clients understanding or trying to understand what the right cartridge is for a turntable
and they often skimp on the cartridge which is a bit concerning um I'm sort of from the
world of um believing that really the biggest impact on a performance on the turntable is the
cartridge that's really where the magic happens the turntable the tone arm the head shell their
job is to allow the cartridge to track properly and not get in the way people talk about certain T
tables sounding magical and and improving dynamic range and balance and all these crazy things
really it's all about the cartridge and how it's set up now that's why we like techniques
turntables they are easy to set up they are super robust and well built and they don't get in
the way of the performance of the cartridge and that's what I'm hoping to illustrate here for you
with this sort of silly experiment and for those of you unfamiliar this is the awesome techniques
SL 1500c comes in three colors black white and silver um it is the entry level essentially for
the consumer line of techniques turntables there are other DJ turntables but this is the entry
level for them I've done a pretty detailed video on this turntable which I will link below for
you in case you are interested it's essentially a 12200 U design minus the pitch control you see
it's missing from here here uh uses obviously the strobe is also missing from the platter uses
a little less expensive materials but still a formidable turntable I encourage you to watch
the review if you're interested and also this uh cartridge came to us recently the Goldfinger
um from a client we purchased this we sent it out to vas here in Jersey to get a clean bill of
health on it and it is going to be up for sale in case you're interested in a sweet discount
on uh on one of the best cartridges or consider one of the best cartridges out there is the clear
audio Goldfinger statement moving coil cartridge as advertised by music direct for $17,500
that's quite a bit of money for a cartridge it's definitely on the high end if we look at the
specifications we got some interesting things in here well you've got some reviews claiming how
amazing it is but they're using a 24 car gold wire for the coils so that's the wire that's um
wrapped around the coils apparently uh it's 30% thinner so it's lighter blah blah blah it's got a
Precision mil gold mounting for the magnet array and solid 14 karat gold body so quite a bit of
uh of its weight and price probably comes from utilizing gold and yes that is in fact a little
Diamond mounted in the front because that's to make you feel good about it um if all things
fail and you destroy it you could always turn that into a diamond ring for your uh beloved um
looking at the specifications fairly heavy at 16 grams frequency response are claiming all the way
up to 100 khz that's pretty cool uh micro HD is this stylish shape that's the cut of the diamond
uh candal borne I like that combination of those two uh Track Force at 2.8 gram which is a bit high
but uh that's what it takes to activate this thing and a 0.9 U Mill Volts for it output voltage so
not too high not too low and but body material of 14k as mentioned before all right so let's
uh let's get this thing going see how good it sounds this is the lp we're going to be showcasing
this is ruffer Reed presents kin cardello our good friend Michael fer is the executive U producer
um it's a really wonderful sounding album modern pressing this is Fresh Off The of the press and
we're going to pray plays side one uh track one I I'll leave a link below uh if you're interested in
uh purchasing this album if you like what you're [Music] [Music]
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[Music] [Music] you'll often hear me talk about the sort of price
performance ratio for cartridge on a turntable so while it is silly put a $177,000 cartridge
on a $1,200 turntable it's just as silly to put a $300 cartridge on an $4,200 turntable
like the SL 1200g so what is the right price range I'd like to sort of see something in
the performance range of around 6 7800 on a, 1500 on a 1 1200g The Sweet Spot happens to be
a Sumo Starling right around the $1,800 range now there are other manufacturers uh Hana
makes a super good cartridge um clear audio there's plenty of them out there but in terms
of price and performance that tends to be where we find The Sweet Spot now when we get to the
of this record I really would appreciate your comments on this do you think this is a silly
combination do you hear a difference do you appreciate the quality of the cartridge and also
do you think a turntable like this is a limiting factor or not for a cartridge of this level
certainly you tracked well it measured well everything on the bench showed up to be pretty
good and I was pretty pleased with the results but obviously it's more important what you
guys think so please leave a comment below
