To retip or not to retip MMC6000

[Hunchbacker]

I recently picked up a steal of a deal on a original owner 4002 TT. ( see “Should I spend $75” in this forum) It only needed a belt and solenoid to get the arm to properly scan and drop. I was blessed with a mmc 6000 in the deal.

However, after purchasing a DIN 5 pin adaptor and connecting to my receiver I started doubting the condition of the stylus. Very scratchy. Tried a different adaptor, then speakers, then a different receiver . No change. I am about 90% convinced the stylus is worn out.

Any advice on replacing or re-tipping this stylus is welcome. The deck is mechanically sound and almost mint.

[Placidpete]

Hi, I have used Franz-Josef Schulte at FJS Tonabnehmer Service GmbH & Co.KG for several cartridge rebuilds with excellent results. Hope this helps.

info@tonabnehmerservice.de

regards

Gordon

[Hunchbacker]

Thank you.

I see his wait time is 1-3 months. Maybe that is normal but being in Wa State, USA I am not sure I have the patience. 🙂 I am also looking into replacing it. Since posting I have contacted Soundsmith here in the states. Awaiting options but still open to opinions from fellow owners.

 

[Hunchbacker]

Ended up finding a retipped mmc6000 on the bay.  Rebuilt by Joseph Long (Groovetickler), using the original beryllium cantilever, and retipping with a .12mm square nude .2 x .7 mil elliptical diamond.

Thanks to Beoworld member Vintage Hifi Dude.

[Peter]

The MMC6000 used a diamond tip designed by Subir Pramanik – (an aside, his wife worked at B&O in customer service – spoke to her a few times – a lovely lady). The stylus was a modified Shibata type but with an even smaller contact width. B&O did do a demonstration kit with large styluses showing the different profiles. I have had the SP15, 4000, 5000 and 6000 in my time. The 6000 seems to get deeper into the groove than the others – it was designed along with the 5000 to play CD4 records which used a carrier frequency up to 40k – I did have a 6000 system and a couple of CD4 records – not really a fan. The 6000 was however a superb record cleaner!! I would run a record once without listening and then clean the stylus before playing the record to listen! It would clear dust after what you thought had been a good clean with a record brush! I suspect you likely have a more useful cartridge now. My favourite was always the MMC20CL – I suspect however than most of these cartridges will suffer from hardening of the suspension – I confess to using my record players much less these days as my hearing is nolonger capable of discerning very high frequencies so the esoteric cartridges are wasted upon me!

My B&O Icons:

[Capt’nGerard, formerly known as Gaea]

Did you check with a microscope then?

These 6000 stylii go deeper into the grooves and pick up more dirt and dust, and with a sferical stylus you might hear nothing.

Better buy a usb microscope first and check it first.

Location: Netherlands

[Peter]

The point of the 6000 is that the contact patch in deep into the groove but extremely thin. This is because it was designed to pick upm the CD4 encoding which required tracking at about 40kHz. Clearly this needed a very fine contact area to be able to do this. The 20CL is capable as is the MMC5000 but the use of CD4 is very limited – only the Beomaster 6000 and 3400 were quad equipped – had both as well as a Beogram 6000 with MMC6000 and even some CD4 records – academic interest really – somewhere still have the records though the BG6000 had the quad decoder removed and became a 4001!

My B&O Icons:

[Author]

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