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A few vintage, high-compliance cartridges

Posted by mr.bear on January 8, 2017 at 00:02:46:

I recently revived a couple vintage carts that had been "in a coma" for a few decades. I wanted to see if you could get great sound for around 150 bucks.

The units exhumed were ones I'd admired a long time ago, but never got a chance to own. My current table has a low mass arm and I've been listening to ADC XLM variants for a couple years now -- a baseline --very good performers that satisfy my current system performance goals.

#1 Cart started with a Pickering XSV-3000 body from a turntable wreck. It is now sporting an aftermarket "Stereohedron" XUV-4500Q stylus sourced from The Voice of Music; I think the list price is about 90 bucks. Decent looking Pickering bodies show up at auction for around 60 bucks often. Tracking at 1.2gm

#2 Cart started as a Signet TK3Ea body purchase via auction for under 50 bucks. It's been fitted with a genuine Audio Technica ATN120E elliptical stylus, sourced from LP Tunes, for about 85 bucks. This stylus seems a very close replacement for the original Signet elliptical. Tracking at 1.6gm

The sound of the Pickering is superb- detailed, good octave-to-octave balance, solid image, and subtly lively. Notes emerge from a black background; the level of detail is comparable to a pretty good MC (just one Bear's opinion-- I had been listening to my Dynavector XX and Denon DL-301 most recently). On the whole, it's slugging way above its weight; I like it better than my best ADC XLMii Improved cart after all.

The Signet is good, solid performer but won't amaze anyone. There are endearing aspects of its sound-- it mellows things a bit, forgoing detail for a measure of smoothness. It seems immune to surface noise. It doesn't throw a big soundstage however and PRAT doesn't grab you. You can listen to it all day though, it doesn't do one thing wrong. It's a good backup unit.