M44-7 on technics headshells.
Easy fit if you have some still, or you can buy them pre-installed.

Ignore the marketing guff about competition and being aimed at DMC and scratch jocks...just know that they track very well, are highly skip & feedback resistant (significantly less trouble frequencies than concordes) but without a massive amount of weight required, and the bass response is superb. Output level is also high.
Will be like nite and day between them for you to be honest.

I had a bit of an 'incident' once with someone who is unfortunately an ortofon endorsee and insisted that they must use them in place of my 44-7s which the system was set up for.
Sure enough, in addition to it sounding shite, had significant other issues and then quite predictably I got moaned at for it

Last edited by Freak on Nov-26-2017 at 19:47

I currently use the M44G, want to get a pair of the Whitelables myself

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quote:

Originally posted by Freak M44-7 on technics headshells. Easy fit if you have some still, or you can buy them pre-installed. Ignore the marketing guff about competition and being aimed at DMC and scratch jocks...just know that they track very well, are highly skip & feedback resistant (significantly less trouble frequencies than concordes) but without a massive amount of weight required, and the bass response is superb. Output level is also high. Will be like nite and day between them for you to be honest. I had a bit of an 'incident' once with someone who is unfortunately an ortofon endorsee and insisted that they must use them in place of my 44-7s which the system was set up for. Sure enough, in addition to it sounding shite, had significant other issues and then quite predictably I got moaned at for it

Thanks mate. I don't really care for the skip/track issue so much as it's just my home setup so no giant F1 system to contend with, but the feedback and weight advantages are key to me. I don't want to fuck my vinyl and given my signal chain I want the best frequency response and reproduction that I can lay my grubbies on.

I've only used them a couple of times and liked them but a mate who used to get called up to set up decks for some acts used to swear by them.

It's always the house engineer that gets blamed when the artists fucks something up.

quote:

Originally posted by Tony Morello I currently use the M44G, want to get a pair of the Whitelables myself

I've got Whitelabels - had them since about when they came out. They sound clean but there is the occasional shifting of the left/right channels where one channel is louder than the other. I've narrowed it down to the headshell since I've gone through about 5 sets of styli on them. The output is a little low for my tastes as well, and I find myself having to increase the gain for almost every record I have quite a bit to get the sound in the sweet spot for my Rane Empath mixer.

I would echo what Freak said and stick with the M447. They aren't the pretest needles, but they sound great and that high output is nice.

Thanks. That's what I'm leaning towards now. I probably have my headshells somewhere in the boxes for my mk5g's. I have always loved the fact you just screw the ortofon in and that's the end of it, and the fact my nightclubs E styli were bright fluorescent yellow meaning you can see exactly where you're putting the needle, but I'm willing to sacrifice those for better audio quality and tracking.

I'm using a Vestax PMC 55 so I've got plenty of gain and it won't turn to shit like a pioneer will if I have to drive the signal. Higher output means less gain and less noise so that's nice.

The only thing I'm a little concerned about is that I've read some guys on RA talking about the m447 being more punchy, but also too bass heavy for some. I can always EQ it out but I'm wondering if after 15 years of Ortofons this is going to annoy me......

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN Thanks. That's what I'm leaning towards now. I probably have my headshells somewhere in the boxes for my mk5g's. I have always loved the fact you just screw the ortofon in and that's the end of it, and the fact my nightclubs E styli were bright fluorescent yellow meaning you can see exactly where you're putting the needle, but I'm willing to sacrifice those for better audio quality and tracking. I'm using a Vestax PMC 55 so I've got plenty of gain and it won't turn to shit like a pioneer will if I have to drive the signal. Higher output means less gain and less noise so that's nice. The only thing I'm a little concerned about is that I've read some guys on RA talking about the m447 being more punchy, but also too bass heavy for some. I can always EQ it out but I'm wondering if after 15 years of Ortofons this is going to annoy me......

Can you go to a Guitar Center and grab one from there? Try it out and see how you like it. You should be able to return it if you don't like the sound.

I think needles fall under the category of non returnable due to how fragile they are etc.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN I think needles fall under the category of non returnable due to how fragile they are etc.

Bought from and fulfilled by amazon (they have them in stock - $79, pretty much what I used to pay in £) by Dec 31st and you can return up to Jan 31st...

Sweet, thanks mate. Just got to make sure I've still got my headshells.....

Late to the party here but I am also leaning towards the M44-7 for general Dj use.

I have a Nagaoka Cart/Stylus for ripping which took me months of research and listening / testing. Of course once you start down that rabbit hole it's a endless search but I find it sounds great for me listening back to 96kHz rips taken from it.

A cliche but I genuinely have heard subtle sounds that I never ever noticed on records I know every beat of. Genuine jaw on floor moment first time it happened.

Ah fucksticks. I don't seem to have my headshells. Going to cost me a small fortune to get headshells and carts now