The XX2 mk II is a beauty, innit? Once I figured out the loading, it really locked in. Dynamic and a lot of inner detail and fluidity to the mids. I still may try the AT33 PTG II out of curiosity or get one for a backup in case I have a clumsy "old man" moment with the XX2.
I have two bodies of the AT33PTG/ll available (I snapped both cantilevers!) ready for retips. Make me a reasonable offer and PM me if you want them!
I recently acquired this very same 32E cartridge nos and I am liking it a lot. Much more seductive than my 33ev, but I do hear more surface noise unfortunately.
I recently purchased a second new AT33PTG/II for a good price as a backup for the current one with ca. 300 hours on it. I'm listening to vinyl about 150-200 hours a year. And now I'm wondering, how long I can put the new one on the shelf without losing it's inital quality characteristics? Does anyone has experience with that?
I've never tried so take this with a grain of salt, but it should last a really long time. The only issues with older carts are if they employ rubber suspensions that can dry out, and this isn't a factor with this cart AFAIK. Last year I bought an Astatic MF300 that was made in the 80s (so it was about 30 years old) and it sounds really good.
Thanks for your reply and sharing your experience. With my vinyl listening habits, it only needs to last about 3-4 years until I reached 1000 hours with my current AT33ptg/II. So I think that a dryout of the rubber suspension won't be an issue here. Wow, it's simply astonishing, that a cart of the 80s is still in best working condition.
I will give another enthusiastic recommendation to Ebay seller 2juki. I ordered my AT33PTG/II and it was delivered to me in South Carolina, USA in less than a week. I can hardly wait to try it with my new Audiomods arm that is supposed arrive in about ten days!
I replaced my AT-150MLX with a AT33PTG/2 last week and am very satified. I've got mine on a Project 10cc Evo arm. It seems to be a good match.
Yes, I just ordered from him, too, and it arrived in five days, despite the Thanksgiving holiday. I hope you enjoy the new cart, after getting the adjustments and gain/loading correct, I've been very pleased with the sound. I can't think of any other cartridges at even double the price that I liked better than the AT33PTG/II.
Several months ago I bought the AT33ptg/ii for another table but never got around to trying it. The other night I decided to crack open the box and give it a try on my Yamaha PF-800. I've had really great luck with my AT150mlx on that deck so why not try it...right? Wrong! Oh man, no luck period. The table has kind of an usual arm set up that combines two different weight adjustments for the static balance method. You can also cheat and set the primary weight adjustment to zero and just use the rear counterweight. This kind of keeps the mass closer to the pivot. The latter almost worked (with a VTF of 2g) but I still couldn't get any real consistent tracking. I even played with the VTA (using an allen wrench you have some ability to do this) but again no luck. It's not life or death as the mlx gives me loads of enjoyment but all the glowing reviews here got me excited to try the ptg/ii. The PF-800 arm allegedly has an effective mass of 11g and the ptg/ii weighs 6.9g...would adding more mass to the headshell keep me on the road (mlx weighs 8.3g) or do I in fact need a lighter arm? I willingly accept any brow beatings laid upon me for gross ignorance.
I'm not sure about the mass on that yamaha, but this cartridge tracked just fine on a Technics 1200 (12grams I think), and tracks just fine too on my current table a Yamaha yp D71, arm effective mass 15g. It would seem to me that something else is amiss here other than the arm mass alone.
Same here, ordered from 2juki and arrived very fast, it was back in October and got to me in MA in about a week. Great cartridge, I can see why everybody loves this one, once it's set up correctly it sounds great! I've been happy with it and the more it breaks in, the better it sounds, pretty amazing considering the price.
Nice tables! I originally bought the cart for my Yamaha GT-2000 but am currently happy with the Zyx R50 Bloom running on it (just about dialed in but still tinkering). The physical build of the GT's arm looks pretty similar to the YP-D71 so I'll definitely give the ptg/ii a try on it to rule out any manufacturing issues. If you don't mind me asking, which headshell are you using on the YP-D71 and what is your overhang? Should I start to have some luck with the ptg/ii that information would be very useful.
I think 11g effective mass If you don't have the overhang and alignment dialed in very precisely, this cartridge will not track well at all. I was having trouble dialing in my AT33EV until I realized the cantilever was a little skewed. Once I aligned the cart to the actual cantilever orientation, it worked perfectly. If you arm is 11g, that should be nearly ideal, so adding weight to the headshell is probably not the solution, and will only mute/dampen the sound.
As I mentioned before, the PF-800's arm is a little unorthodox when compared with most tables and I was kind of floored to hear how good the AT150mlx sounded on it. There is a genuine synergy there. Its physical build is not a far cry from the original carts that shipped with the PF-800 whereas the ptg/ii bears no resemblance to them. The cantilever appears straight as an arrow on the ptg/ii and it looks altogether flawless. I have an ultralight Denon headshell (6g) so I can definitely use that with the GT-2000 to match the 15g effective mass of the YP-D71. I'll give that a try before revisiting the PF-800.
Yeah, it looks exactly the same as on the GT2000. It's a little longer than a normal arm like on the Technics 1200. I think it's the arm that sounds better, but hard to say, but the Yamaha D71 quickly displaced the stock 1200. It was a curiousity buy while I was mulling putting some money into a new arm for the Technics. Store had the Yamaha sitting there, looked pristine with a cool looking arm, and they had a return policy so I figured 'why not try it out for a few days?' Well, $300 later, I just kept it! It's glorious. I'm using a Technics headshell, just the generic Technics ones you can get anywhere. I had trouble with the alignment on the AT33PTG/ii because I think the cantilever is back some and quite a bit shorter than on the AT440MLa I was replacing. I couldn't quite get it forward enough to hit the alignment I wanted on the technics 1200, I was using one of Seb's protractor gauges from vinylengine I think, I believe it was Baerwald. But I may have chosen Lofgren, I forget. In any case, I got it pretty close and it sounded damn good on the Technics, and very quickly after that I got the Yamaha, and just put the headshell/cartridge right on there and haven't looked at the alignment. It sounds fantastic. I haven't really had time to sit down with test records and figure out how to align the thing with the longer arm. You will LOVE the cart on the GT2000 I expect. It's wonderful. If there's still problems, I think there must be some other issues happening? It certainly sounds like you have enough experience to know what you're doing that you're not making newbie mistakes, so I'm almost worried something's wrong with the cart. But long story short: I just used a printed protactor on the Technics 1200, got it close enough, and then put that on the Yamaha D71 with no changes.
I'd say you pretty much called it. Fitted the ptg/ii to my ADC ultralight headshell and calibrated the GT...tracking was reasonable but holy cow, feedback and distortion. Never heard this from a cartridge ever. Shelved the ADC and moved on to the Denon 6g...recal'd the GT and tracking was noticeably more relaxed/smooth but again the feedback/distortion and sadly what I could hear sounded good. Put my Zyx back on the GT and got an even better alignment than last time and experienced none of the above issues...the AT is in fact (loud gutteral noise) a dud. So at the very least I know this cart can work with my best table but the one I have is currently an expensive paperweight. I am guessing that it's an internal wiring/coil problem as I can't imagine how a stylus would feedback on itself and the cantilever is not bent or skewed in any way. I emailed Amazon but may end up having to contact AT Japan as I doubt AT USA will do anything for a cart they don't even sell. Shipping damage or B-stock...who knows. Going to try to think happy thoughts for now...
Oh, that's really too bad, I hope you can get it resolved and replaced or at least your money back. I hope you get a working one to listen to, it is WONDERFUL!
Amazon said they would be able to offer some sort of refund but I am going to first try AT Japan to see if I can get a warranty repair/replacement. So long as you are under 4 lbs, shipping to Japan is not that expensive. I have some Japanese language connections so I may be able to have someone call them directly. AT usually makes great stuff so maybe it's just a fluke or a bad lot floating around.
Does anybody want to make me an offer on those two AT33PTGII bodies (my mistake in breaking the cantilevers!) that I have? Just right for retipping - I will entertain any offers!
So happy to find out about this cart...thanks to this forum. I too swapped out my 150-MLX for the AT33PTG/II and after listening incessantly for the past several days I'd have to say this is the best cartridge I've ever owned. And like Chill, I ordered mine through 2juki and was very pleased to say the least. One of the better eBay experiences! Communication was excellent and the shipping speed blew me away.