DJ What Style Should You Use Concord or Cartridge for Your Vinyl Turntable

0:00 Where my finger is for the partially sighted I have now

So, Concord style cartridge or head shell, your basic sort of cartridge that you would attach to the head shell. Now this is the head shell for a vinyl turntable and this is a Concord style cartridge. Now first of all the Concord style probably used by a lot of DJs today simply because there's very little set up. All you need to do is once you take it out of the box, you place it into the tonearm twist and that's pretty much it. The only other thing you would maybe ever need to do is replace the styli also known as the needle at the end. Where my finger is for the partially sighted I have now got my finger right at the tip of the tonearm, sorry I beg your pardon not the tonearm but the cartridge itself.

0:51 Cartridge now that's attached to

Now that area there is removed. That is the part where the needle will be, the styli. Pull that off, replace with a new one and that is pretty much it. Now let's just remove the Concord cartridge and have a look at the cartridge now that's attached to the head shell. Now the difference with this is that you'll very rarely have a head shell attached to a cartridge unless you're buying quite cheap cartridge and head shell put together. Generally if you're buying good quality cartridge, you will have to then attach that yourself to a head shell and you need to screw it on, make sure it's screwed to the head shell correctly and also you have four small wires. There's green, red, blue and white. Four of those need to be attached to the head shell because those are the parts that will pick up the signal right left and earth.

Okay so what's the advantage and disadvantage? Well the Concord, there's no need to set anything. It's set alright. The needle, the styli is in exactly the position it needs to be. On the other hand if you buy something like this with a cartridge that you need to position yourself. You've not only got to put it on yourself but you've got to make sure that the position of the cartridge is as it should be in let's say the manufacturer's instructions. If the cartridge is too far forward you may have skipping, too far back you could have skipping. If let's say you screw it in at a slight angle then you may start to ruin your vinyl and so on. So there's a little bit more to do. Now this one I'm showing you just for demonstration purposes because this cartridge is completely knackered.

On the other hand this Autofon cartridge still works relatively well but I do feel as though I need to change the needle. At the end soon because it's starting to sound a little bit rough. Alright so this video is really just showing you the difference between the likes of what's known as a Concord style cartridge and your old school. There's the head shell and there is a cartridge that has to be fitted manually by yourself. Alright hope that's been a help, practice and enjoy thank you.

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