MONO cartridge recommendation

mofimadness wrote:

I also have an Audio Technica AT-Mono/3. It’s a pretty decent little cart and isn’t very expensive.

I have that cartridge, too. It’s officially imported and sold by LpGear for $189.99. I got mine through a Japanese storefront on Amazon for a mere $112 and change two years ago. Dollar-to-Yen exchanges fluctuate over time and it’s currently $127.95 from that vendor.

Here are the 20 Amazon customer reviews for this cartridge: https://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-AT-MONO3-LP-Moving-Cartridge/dp/B0002ERE2Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1509037302&sr=8-1&keywords=audio+technica+at-mono3%2FLP

I really like this cartridge. I won’t dispute that you might get some higher highs and lower lows from more expensive mono carts, but there is a fundamental honesty to this cartridge that I find endearing. It has a full, rich tonal balance while maintaining good detail. Internal wiring is PCOCC (monocrystal) copper.

I bought mine specifically for playing my 2014 release of the Beatles mono LP collection. After playing that colIection with a stereo cart for a full year, I was not disappointed with the mono cart; in fact I was enlightened. I also found that I had far more mono LPs than I realized, both modern reissues (e.g., Beach Boys) and vintage LPs of all kinds pulled from thrift shops, antique pavilions, and bargain bins.

Right now I’m listening to a 1969 mono Capitol pressing of "Echoes of a 16th Century Cathedral" performed by the Roger Wagner Chorale. I got it for 49 cents at an antiques pavilion, and all the music is intact and with the mono cartridge the presentation is dead quiet. With a stereo cartridge it is unbearably noisy.

My wife, who grew up singing sacred vocal works, loves this album. It also quiets down the dogs.

I also have vintage mono jazz, a genuine Everest mono pressing of a Mozart woodwind ensemble, another 1969 mono pressing of the Vince Guaraldi Trio of "You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown," reissues of Miles Davis on Prestige and Riverside, some Gene Krupa, etc.

True, I don’t have a collection of mono cartridges for comparison, but when I find what I’m looking for, I stop looking.

The big question for me is whether the minority of available mono cartridges that are built for mono from the ground up (which means they have little or no vertical compliance and no capacity to respond in stereo to the groove modulations) are intrinsically superior in reproduction to the rest.

My cartridge is vertically compliant but does not transmit any signal in the vertical plane. When the needle drops to the record surface, it makes no sound, whereas my AT150Sa makes a very loud THUMP!

When I play a munged up mono record with any stereo cartridge, the surface noise is unbearable. When I play the same record with the AT-MONO3/LP, all I hear is the music.

As I said before, I got my AT-MONO3/LP cart for a paltry $112. and change. KABUSA's mono switch is $229. My tonearm uses interchangeable headshells, so switching to the mono cart takes very little time including balancing and resetting the VTF.

If, however, I had a tonearm with integrated headshell and had to swap carts on one of those every time I had a hankering for mono, you can bet I'd buy the KABUSA mono switch instead.

I still stand by that modern mono carts with vertical compliance are a good thing as long as the cart doesn't transmit signal in the vertical plane.

salectric wrote:

In fact, looking over the whole thread I’m not sure who I recalled suggesting that mono records played with a stereo pickup will be too noisy.

That was probably me, but I need to clarify that I was only referring to vintage 1950s-’60s mono LPs, not modern reissues. I have several from both categories. I have several modern mono reissues--the 2014 Beatles EMI/Parlophone reissues, the Capitol Beach Boys reissues including Pet Sounds and Smile, Acoustic Sounds Nat King Cole reissue, etc. All are really quiet, even when played by a stereo cartridge.

OTOH, I have many original 1950s-60s mono LPs rescued from bargain bins for 50-99 cents, that are totally noisy with all 3 of my stereo carts and totally quiet with my one mono cart.