Cartridges

Moving magnet cartridges with excellent compliance were all the rage in the vinyl world in the 1970s. The M75ED, which was debuted in 1974, ruled the roost. The manufacturer claimed it could track securely down to 0.75g thanks to its ultra-light design and great compliance. The VMS20E from Ortofon was another famous design that pushed […]

The vintage Ultimo 10X, a high output moving coil built and manufactured by Dynavector of Japan, will be remembered by any analogue enthusiast worth his record collection. It was one of the most musical cheap pickups available in the late 1970s, with the added benefit of not requiring a pricey step up transformer. The problem

As one might anticipate, the cartridge market in the late 1970s was thriving. This was the pinnacle of the vinyl craze, when the format was all-powerful and the only method to listen to high-quality stereo recordings. As you might expect, the market was broad, with cheap Goldring G850 moving magnets retailing for around £10 and

To honor the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Johan Sebastian Bach’s death, Ortofon released three new Kontrapunkt moving coil cartridges at the turn of the millennium. The a and b comfortably outsold the c, despite the fact that they were all slightly different. The b was my favorite of the bunch, with a Nude

After what seems like decades of waiting, Audio-Technica released a new cartridge line in 2017, with bodies in the 500, 600, and 700 Series and seven different styli kinds, including special line contact, Shibata, MicroLine, elliptical, and conical varieties. The playback of stereo, mono, and even 78 rpm shellac recordings is optimized in all versions.

This Japanese cartridge expert isn’t exactly prolific, to put it that way. Since 1962, Audio-Technica has manufactured its own phono cartridges, but it has launched much fewer types than European competitors like as Ortofon. Despite its age, the popularity of its evergreen – forgive the pun – entry-level AT-95E moving magnet, which is now in

The new Audio Technica AT-OC9X is the fourth iteration of this venerable moving coil in 32 years. Bonded Elliptical (AT-OC9XEB, £210), Nude Elliptical (AT-OC9XEN, £300), Microlinear (AT-OC9XML, £480), Shibata (AT-OC9XSH, £570), and Special Line Contact (AT-OC9XSL, £660) are among the stylus options. “When the first AT-OC9 series was introduced in 1987, it was an innovative

There was a time in the mid-1970s when Ortofon cartridges were all over the place. Almost every new sub-£100 turntable seemed to come with an FF15E — a good-sounding £15 budget model – whilst your Rega Planar 3s, Ariston RD40s, and Dunlop Systemdek IIs tended to come with the VMS20E. This was an excellent fit

This moving magnet cartridge was introduced in 1978 and sold for the princely price of £37, which was a lot of money for a phono cartridge at the time. In a world where a £25 Ortofon VMS20E was deemed lavish, most British purchasers regarded the new Rega as a high-end product. It was designed to

It’s been a long time, but if you time-traveled to the mid-1970s and conducted a poll of the most popular phono cartridge on the market, this would undoubtedly come out on top. Between 1974 and 1979, the Shure M75ED ‘Stereo Dynetic Cartridge’ appeared on practically every new turntable on the market. Of course, your Linn