UK dealer HTFR have a thing for the colour red and coming soon is a series of exclusive products that will certainly brighten up a scene full of largely neutral gear with splashed of hotness here and there. Coming first are the Diablo carts, created exclusively for HTFR by Stanton. Based on the Stanton Diskmaster, the Diablo falls squarely into the category of wallet friendly jack of all trades.
I do have a soft spot for Stanton, as do many old timers as the legendary 500AL cart was THE cart to use waaaay back in the day. So I knew that despite the price of the Diablo, I'd get good performance, but how good was the unknown.
First Impressions
Arrrrghh! My eyes!! Forgive me but I come from a DJ world where Black and silver have ruled supreme for many years nay decades. Indeed my own skratchlab is a shrine to monochromality so breaking the Diablo out into my setup did shake the trees a little. But times change and with the previous trend for white iThis and iThat plus Vestax's short dalliance with orange, there's a move away from the darkside and into a world where the saturation dial has been turned up a bit. Splashes of colour are good.
This is an all in one design, meaning no headshell setup and no fiddling with little wires. It's true plug and play with the added benefit of visibility around the needle. Indeed, the end of the needle has a fluorescent orange blob on the tip. It's also a very lightweight needle so if you're used to something heavier, you'll need to play a little with the weight on the tonearm. Quality wise, this isn't as polished as an Ortofon but fits my tonearm properly and doesn't feel like it's going to break. Can't say much more than that really - it does the job.
Some Science
These are spherical needles. For those not savvy with needle technology, broadly speaking there are 2 needle types - spherical and elliptical. Both have their pros and cons but for general purpose use, spherical is favoured. Imagine a ball sat in a v-shaped groove - that's a spherical needle. Now imagine an egg sat in that same groove - that's elliptical. Spherical sits higher in the groove and has a small surface contact, which means good sound with low record wear. Elliptical however sits deeper in the groove giving a much better sound but because of the increased surface area being touched by the needle, wear is increased. That's basic science and simply a broad painting of a much more involved picture.
In Use
My standard practice (and yours should be too) is to break a fresh needle in. I'm pretty tired of destroying my precious vinyl in because I'm too impatient to take the time to prepare. So I set the Diablo on my straight armed Numark TTX - max weight on a piece of old vinyl for a few hours. Ideally this should be overnight but my impatience got the better of me. Although after 4 hours, the Diablo seemed to be broken in just fine. Repeated heavy scratching on a fresh "Aaaah" sample yielded little in the way of burn, which after such a short amount of breaking in, suggests that the needles may wear quickly.
To test the sound, I set the Diablo up against my current benchmark - the Ortofon Thud Rumble Concorde with the same vinyl, same neutral EQs and same gain through a pair of Stanton ATM.6 monitors. The results were impressive considering the wide price difference. Obviously the Ortothud was better but not by the wide margin I expected. The Diablo offers a solid sound - fairly rich and detailed but perhaps overall a little flat, but nothing that a tweak on the EQs doesn't fix, but most certainly excellent sound for the price.
Finally, as any DJ would, I tested sticking to the groove. The recommended tracking force is between 2 and 5 grams - a very wide band indeed, but I found that with a straight arm 4 grams was about right. Not so much weight that it carves a trench in your vinyl and not enough that it skips out at the merest back cue. Again, I was surprised at how well the Diablo performed for such a budget priced cart. It even held up well in the normally fussy TTX S-arm.
Summing up
I've used all sorts of carts over the years, tending to favour headshell mounted carts such as Stanton 500ALs and Shure 447s but I've recently become a convert to Concorde style carts. So my expectations of a £39.95 cart against a £100 one were low. But I was deeply pleased with what I got out of the Diablo. It sounds great, tracks well and for the money, gives you a very good all round performance.
Interestingly, HTFR offer a lifetime warranty the Diablo - not the needles you understand, but the cart itself. This as far as I'm aware is pretty unique for a DJ cart.
Diablo carts come in the following configurations:
1 x cart and needle - £39.95
1 x spare needle - £16.95
2 x carts and needles - £65
2 x carts and needles, 2 x spare needles and deluxe case - £99
4 x carts and needles plus small flightcase - £129
4 x carts and needles, 4 x spare needles plus small flightcase - £189
Click the links to take you to HTFR's product pages.
So you can see that the single cart is very wallet friendly as are the multi-deals. But on top of this is the relatively cheap cost of spare needles as well, so you'll be able to buy spares and not worry too much about price.
Ratings
Build Quality - 7.5/10
Frills free but does the job.
Sound Quality - 8/10
Stacks up very well compared to higher end needles.
Features & Implementation - 8.5/10
It plugs in and plays, gives great sound and sticks to the groove pretty well.
Value For Money - 9/10
If you need a second set of carts, these would be a great option without killing you financially
Pros:
• Colour (if you want something different)
• Value for money
Cons
• Colour (not my cup of tea)
• Possible quick wear on the needles (assumption, not proved)
The Bottom Line
Buyers will be driven by looks and price and if you want something a little aesthetically different and keeping a few quid in your bank account, with good all round performance, the Diablo should be on your shopping list.
