Fun with 25 year old Audio Technica Cartridge

Vinyl Asylum

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For the past 25 years I've moved all my old cartridge boxes with me but never really revisited those old chestnuts. Recently I had been on a jag of testing a lot of new $500 to $800 low output MC carts. And, while doing some work on the TT I found that old box of TT parts and carts. In my old cartridge box I had an old Stanton EPOCH HZ6E and an old Audio Technica MK12SII. I tried the old Stanton but it was horrible. I wanted to try the AT but it was missing a stylis.
This old AT had a replaceable stylis like a Grado. I still had the box and everything and inside there was a chart with 7 stylii listed that would fit the AT and they ranged from cheap to expensive stylii with ever better listed specs as you moved up the chain.
I decided to spend a little money and buy one of the better stylii listed on the chart and found an ATS12S for $55 at www.stereoneedles.com. The ATS12S is 3rd from the top and has pretty good specs with a Shibata stylis. According to the chart with the cart it has a frequency response of 15-45K and 26 db of separation.
We'll the stylis arrived today and I'm listing right now to my 25 year old AT cart playing my "test" LP that I use for such evaluations. All I can say is WOW. How can a 25 year old MM cartridge sound as good as this? I guess I had pretty low expectations but it sounds pretty good.
Any of you got any OLD cartridges out there that still sound good?
Paul Green

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Topic - Fun with 25 year old Audio Technica Cartridge - creativepart 12:10:30 09/12/06 (11)

Re: Fun with 25 year old Audio Technica Cartridge - mosin 15:53:55 09/12/06 (4)

Re: Fun with 25 year old Audio Technica Cartridge - Ray-o-Stat 18:56:24 09/12/06 (2)

So what are the 3 carts that displaced your Ruby? nt - Salectric 03:57:41 09/13/06 (1)

Re: So what are the 3 carts that displaced your Ruby? nt - Ray-o-Stat 08:33:35 09/13/06 (0)

Re: Fun with 25 year old Audio Technica Cartridge - creativepart 16:04:28 09/12/06 (0)

running old Shure V15 III, - docw 15:48:03 09/12/06 (1)

Shure V15 III -- that's a contemporary of this AT MK12SII - creativepart 16:07:58 09/12/06 (0)

Grace F9E - fatdaddy 13:38:36 09/12/06 (3)

Old Cart vs. Denon - creativepart 13:58:03 09/12/06 (2)

Re: Old Cart vs. Denon - fatdaddy 13:45:51 09/13/06 (1)

Re: Old Cart vs. Denon - creativepart 16:30:52 09/13/06 (0)

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