New Dynamic Stereo Head for Sale

[piaptk]

Not sure if it has been mentioned on here yet, but Konstantin Tokarev in Mexico City has developed a new stereo cutting head. I have several and have been helping him test them. They sound great and dealing with Konstantin is a pleasure.

There are about a dozen of them out in the field as beta test units and are being used daily. They are ready to mount on most mono lathes (remember that to get true stereo you have to cut, not emboss, tho you do get a little stereo effect with embossing). The only issue that ive found is that, due to the size of the head, on lathes with a center foot feedscrew drive, the last groove is about 1/8” shy of the RIAA spec that allows automatic turntables to lift up.

Konstantin currently has the last head from the “Beta Batch”, Sn014 available for sale, all tested and ready to go. Moving forward the MSRP will be $2500 on them, but this last Beta version is $2000. If you are interested in more details, PM me and i will give you Konstantins email.

[Thelurker]

Price seems to of shot up from what he quoted me last year. Sure they’re still worth the money though.

Aren’t they a bit big and heavy also which could cause an issue on some set ups?

[socialroots]

Chilango stereo cuttinghead!
Ahuevo,
Patrick

[piaptk]

Price seems to of shot up from what he quoted me last year. Sure they’re still worth the money though.

Aren’t they a bit big and heavy also which could cause an issue on some set ups?

Well, as is par for the course with brand new products, the very first batch is where the kinks are that have to get worked out, so, those brave souls willing to take that risk usually get a discount for doing that work. And that was the case here. I've sent my head back a few times for various practical readjustments, but am very happy with the current incarnation. Also, everything in the WORLD is more expensive now than it was last year due to covid and supply chain issues.

As listed in the original post, it is wide, which causes problems for automatic turntable liftouts on lathes with a center foot overhead. However, it is not heavy at all. 9 oz.

[piaptk]

If you were talking to him a year ago, you may be thinking of the very first incarnation, which was huge (the size of Souri's head) and heavy. Cheaper and less refined than the new updated and smaller version, which has really only been around for 7-8 months.

[MEGAMIKE]

sounds great but I assumed that you were making them mike? also who will be supplying the diamonds for it?

[piaptk]

Nope. I am only using and helping to test them. They take any standard long or short shank stylus.

[emidisc]

Pictures? Link? Site?

[piaptk]

He doesn't have a site as of now, but when it goes into a larger production run, I may start selling them on RecordLatheParts.com. Konstantin will chime in soon with photos and sound samples. I tried linking to FB photos but they showed up as broken links.

[kostix]

Hey guys!

Konstantin here, from the TKV Instruments idea. Nice to meet all of you!

As my good friend Michael mentioned I have been working on designs and builds of cutterheads for a couple of years now, with the last year mostly dedicated to finetuning the design of this compact size stereo head, called TKV Instruments VC01, mostly focused to fit the Presto machines, but with some further directions I could design any kind of mount for any kind of recorder. Several guys from the community were kind enough to support my work by purchasing a few cutterheads from me for testing and using while giving some feedback about it (Thank you all so much!) . The head has been exhibiting quite nice high frequency response with relatively simple equalization - a single instance of Fabfilter (or any other parametric equalizer up for the job) allows to correct the response of the head, making it relatively simple to get it into a flat, nice sounding response. No need to use inverse RIAA as it seems that the bass response that the drivers exhibit need near no change to sound good on the cut, so when inverse RIAA equalization is used it just becomes detrimental by lowering too much the low section and rising the highs, while a simple instance of a parametric equalizer can get the job done (of course with or without additional processing to handle harsh high frequency drums, SS's loaded material, and such).

I have built 16 units so far and have one in finished state as well as another one near finished. Over the course of the assemblies I have been recording a lot of cutting tests which you can listen at the following links. All files should be marked with the head serial number that was used for that test. All tests have been recorded with this model of the head, using a recording lathe I designed, stepper driven overhead moving the head over a beatup, torque-modded Technics 1200SL MK2. The head was powered by a QSC USA900 amplifier (not the best for the 8 ohm impedance of the head), fed with signal coming from the headphone amplifier output for additional boost to level up with this particular amplifier which is happier with 4 ohm loads. The tests have been recorded using a myshank diamond on the black blanks also from the same source, using turtlewax on the discs surface, as well as no needle heat, and some tests ran with the heat lamp warming the disc. On the computer I have been using FL Studio as the DAW for tracks playback and equalization, as well as Audition as the recording app and freq response analysis.

Big collection of tests:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1AuUU7T-lY8Ffw67bXPNPi_SBrpG0tU-G

Test with the SN14 head which is available to ship:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K8uksTzr4R-tsoR40LWTvcK2Qxr1mOar/view?usp=sharing

Here is a bunch of videos I recorded about calibration of several different heads, this was recorded a few months ago before sending out the heads (these are spoken videos, so mind you, my english is not perfect being russian but currently living in Mexico):

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11d6D9sqhG6dwKfa2TX0ca3Gnex8yVP7u?usp=sharing

Included here also a bunch of pictures of the builds.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Best regards,
Konstantin

[coreybauer]

Satisfied customer here chiming in... I have been running two of the TKV Instruments Stereo Heads on my Presto 6Ns and could not be happier! Konstantin is joy to work with and offers some of the best and most comprehensive product support imaginable. The heads sound amazing with high fidelity and true stereo separation!

[soeffingodly]

Love it! Well done.

[kostix]

Love it! Well done.

Thank you my friend!

[handcut]

I'm wondering how much the cutting area of the disc is affected by the width of the head on a Presto 8N..?

[piaptk]

I'm wondering how much the cutting area of the disc is affected by the width of the head on a Presto 8N..?

About 1/8”. But Konstantin and I are working on fixing this. He is modding one of my heads now to try something new.

[kostix]

Hey guys!

A bit of an update here! After doing a test CNC milling into the side of one of the heads and creating a turntable center rod Presto dummy to have the real size at hand for reference, i was able to cut a closed groove well beyond the RIAA standard 7" closing area which is nominally 3 7/8". Include here a little graph i made with the RIAA standard dimensions, locations of the closing grooves for 7" and 10/12", as well as the closing area I managed to reach after doing this little machining mod to the head.

[handcut]

Ah great, thanks for this, that's the last sticking point in my mind.

[tragwag]

really glad to hear this, really promising work and results out there in the world with these heads, congrats

[handcut]

Is there much clearance underneath the head for a swarf/chip tube??

[kostix]

Is there much clearance underneath the head for a swarf/chip tube??

Hey buddy! Yea, there should be enough space to make that happen. A pic from one of the guys who got one of the heads:

183343930_306138137712215_3442514671295828271_n.jpg