P-Mount Cartridges

I have a couple of Technics carts (no P30), plus three different AT carts and a Grado.

For the Technics I have original Stylus and some aftermarket. They sound nice in isolation, but are not as accurate as my AT carts.

Grado, from mid- 80 ' s , was a wet blanket and turned me off vinyl for a while.

 

hi!

i just recently got one of these at450's nos. while it has sufficient gain, its sound doesn't seem quite right, and i noticed its (electronic) method of delivery is also odd. what i mean is that i have a dbx 3bx, and while every other source - including a recently acquired linn k18 w/very similar specs, except only 3.5mv output vs the at450's 5mv - allows for the dynamic expansion to be either full loudness boost or full quieting, or somewhere in between, which is how you typically use the 3bx - in between, boosting the volume on the loud passages and increasing quieting on the soft passages. w/the at450, even w/the 3bx's setting at full boost, the signal - and sound - shows only quieting to zero gain. something is definitely amiss. and the sound is not all that defined, w/relatively poor soundstaging. the similarly spec'd k18 kicks its butt.

does anyone happen to have one of these at450's, that also has a dbx 3bx? is there something wrong w/my cartridge, or is this normal for these? i have an at311ep coming shortly - similar cartridge, w/slightly lower gain and bonded instead of nude stylus; i am wondering how it will behave.

thanks,

doug s.

 

Just the thread I was looking for! Thinking of replacing the AT95E in my old Technics TT since the AT is around 10 years old. I believe I paid $100 for the AT at the time. Surprised to see many pmounts selling below $50. Looking forward to reading through the thread and hopefully finding a replacement.

 

There is still some good "New Old Stock" out there

Plus you could also consider Grado (still making P-Mounts).

 

spend a bit more:
AUDIO TECHNICA AT450 UNIVERSAL phono cartridge elliptical diamond NEW RARE! | eBay
this is the cartridge i was complaining about in the post above yours, but it turns out it wasn't the cartridge, it was the sled holding it in my empire turntable's tonearm. i replaced the sled and all's well. not sure how the sled would allow for the signal to pass thru both channels, but screw up the sound, but getting a new sled made everything right. and, it definitely sounds excellent.

if you insist on $50 max, the same seller has these; i think it's the same, except w/a bonded instead of nude mount stylus
AUDIO TECHNICA AT5000SE UNIVERSAL phono cartridge Elliptical NEW genuine. RARE | eBay

doug s.

 

Oh Boy. Not sure what or why I was thinking it was AT95E. Its actually AT92E! Seems LP Gear sells the stylus for the AT92E for $32.

Doug - I'll take a look at the AT450. I'm willing to spend around $100 since that's what I think I paid for the AT92E years ago. I was just surprised to see so many pmounts selling in the $50 and below range upon my first search.

 

well, if your at92e is still functional and you are willing to spend "around $100", you could simply upgrade the stylus to a fine-line type:
LP Gear ATN3472VL stylus

they even have a shibata stylus for $180...
LP Gear ATN3472SA stylus

turntable needles also have upgrade styli, but the "around $100" ones are hyper-elliptical, not fine-line. however, their shibata stylus is a bit less, at $160.
ATS8008 Type Shibata Stylus for Audio-Technica AT8008 - our Needle 213-DSH

doug s.

 

I have a Technics SL-Ql1 and someone at AK turned me on to the 450NE from a seller on Amazon. It's an incredibly good cartridge on my old linear tracker. I'd used the Technics cart for all the years since I bought the table in the early 80's but replaced the stylus over the years, finally having to use after market replacements (which were not marginally close to as good as the originals). The AKer told me about the 450 from a seller on Amazon who had them NOS for about $60. I ordered one and was absolutely blown away at how it revived my turntable. A few days later, I bought a second to have a spare. If you have an old P mount table, get this cartridge while you can!

 

I always wondered, in this plug and play world, if P mount, or something new and similar, would make a comeback.

 

I don't think it's coming back. It's an obsolete system. Replacement market mainly. Grado and Audio-Technica the only companies who currently manufacture cartridges for this system. No new turntables have been made for it either since the early 1990's or so (and those were bottom end by then) Grado's been the only company who has made any really new T4p designs or improvements to existing ones. Sadly for many. The low mass/high compliance cartridge choices are few today even in 1/2" mount. Medium mass, 1.75-2 gram tracking force options is where most of the tonearm/cartridge development is today. Whether MM or MC. Today's plug and play is buying a turntable with a preinstalled conventional cartridge.

 

Silly question, but is hyperelliptical, Shibata and fine line one and the same?

Silly questtion #2, Is replacing they stylus just sliding out and snapping in the bottom plastic shell the stylus is contained in?

Is the 450 considered superior to the 92E? I'm leaning towards the 450 since its OEM and based on previous comments. Thanks.

 

I'd agree that p-mount (T4P) is probably not coming back. Still, it seems that if vinyl popularity remains at a high level for the foreseeable future, I'd think that some turntable manufacturer might attempt something similar, aimed at the new vinyl buyer market with fully-automatic tonearm operations, where the user never has to worry about VTA, VTF, anti-skate, and headshell mounting, yet can still be mid-level "audiophile."

 

no, hyperelliptical, Shibata and fine line are not one & the same. as you move up the chain, (price, usually, as well), the added $$$ gets you a better stylus shape, which digs deeper into the record groove, gets better tracking, and has less wear, as the pressure of the needle is distributed over a larger surface area. which is why the at450 is a mite better than the at5000 - cartridges are the same, even the styli are the same size/types are the same in this case; but nude mounting is more costly than bond mounting, and is superior due to it being less total mass. if you do a web search on different stylus types, you will find lots of info about it.

yes, the stylus assembly just pulls out, and you push in the new one.

according to the specs, the two cartridges are very similar. the at450 specs out a tiny bit better, but this could be to its having a nude stylus instead of a bonded stylus, which would give it a tiny bit better tracking ability. the biggest difference is output, w/the 92 spec'd at 3.5mv and the 450 at 5.0mv. depending on the gain of your preamp/system, this is likely a non-issue, but one might be slightly preferable over the other, if your system is either extremely high or low gain.

info/specs on your at92e:
AT92ECD Phonograph Cartridge (DISCONTINUED)

specs on the at450:


hth,

doug s.

 

it's not the cartridge that is the issue; it's the tonearm. if a turntable mfr wants to "attempt something similar", i'd think they would simply design a new tonearm that accepts p-mount cartridges, as they're a known quantity and are still available.

doug s.

 

Nobody is making an automatic of quality, and hasn't since the 1970's. And audiophiles don't want plug and play without choice locked to one vendor. We had that, it was called Bang & Olufsen. Such that you dream of is not called audiophile. Has to be capable of being optimal performance wise for people's needs. A good single play audiophile turntable which is automatic would be $2000 at minimum or higher to be equivalent to what $300 bought in 1978. Plug and play today is preinstalled cartridge, which can be upgraded if owner desires. Vinyl is not for lazy people either.

 

while not my cuppa, the thorens td 190 and 240 are pretty decent, for $750/$1k. and thorens' semi-auto 295 mkiv for ~$1.3k. their tonearms don't accept the p-mounts, but i could see a mfr making one that did. personally, i prefer used empires, which for ~$250-$500 used, depending on luck, will outperform new decks up to ~$2-2.5k, or even more... which goes to your point of what ~$300 would buy 40 years ago...

doug s.

 

I'm not dreaming for it to happen, I had a fully-automatic p-mount table years ago, and I'd prefer not to go back to that myself. However, I'll bet there's a lot of new vinyl buyers who -- perhaps unreasonably -- expect they can buy a mass-produced turntable, and have it be both terribly easy-to-use and of high-quality with excellent quality sound playback. Basically, people who are used to CD players, and expect that using a turntable will be similarly straightforward while producing the ultra-high-quality sound that they heard vinyl is capable of. These people will be disappointed in the options available today, but if a manufacturer wants to cater to them and produce a machine to satisfy them, then I'd love to see how it turns out

 

Thorens didn't make P-Mounts at any time. Why. They didn't need to. Technics should have kept T4p mount on linear tracking models only, too. T4p mount also was non standard, meant originally for a specialist purpose. Standards are there for a reason. Thorens TD 190 in my world is best known for what it is, an overpriced Dual built automatic. Which sells for triple to 4x what it's really worth.

 

Why? T4p is an obsolete system. There are fewer than 7 currently offered cartridges offered for the mount, in current production. Virtually no cartridge for this system was a clean sheet of paper design for the mount, most were adapted from then existing 1/2" mount designs. You want a plug and play turntable which is automatic, you buy the Denon model offered to you if you want a new one, or the Dual/Fehrenbacher model and with a cartridge pre-installed or dealer installed. Stick to standards. please, freedom of choice. Technics should have kept T4p only on linear tracking models, (which is what they designed this system for).

 

The best Thorens never were automatics. Their forte was manual, high end belt drives outside of the TD 124/TD 224. The TD 190 wasn't even made by Thorens. It's a Dual under an assumed name. Cheaper in the USA as a Thorens. $500 is a fair price for one given the quality. Empires I love (the 698 being the exception), a nice solidly built, superb performer worth the money. In my area, $600 is going rate for a nice one.

 

re: the thorens', i did a bit of research on them. it's my understanding that the dual 455's they were based on (w/a few improvements) have been cheapened considerably, and that if you want a nice(r) 455, you need to get one of the early iterations. and that the $750 thorens, while only a smidge better than the early dual 455, is quite a bit better than the new $500 iterations. of course, i have no first hand knowledge - i read it on the web!

re: the empires, maybe i was just lucky, but i got a really nice 398 for $300 shipped from ebay, which included the rare anti-skate set-up on the 980 tonearm. i got a $50 refund due to some damage from poor packing, including the cartridge; which enabled me to buy that at450 cartridge i mentioned earlier. and yeah, i had to spend another $40 on a cartridge sled to get it working properly; and i also spent ~$15 for a new belt. i also got a really nice 598ii off ebay for $260 shipped, and bought for it a linn k18 cartridge w/new hyperelliptical stylus for $70. my daughter loves it! yes, you can spend up to $500-600 - or more - on a nice empire, if you're impatient and don't want to wait for one at a good price. but even then, they're still bargains, imo.

doug s.

 

Actually, could a manufacturer make and all in one tone arm/ cartridge and just have the stylus replaceable. Much like a children’s record player, but a high quality version.

I think the closest I see to plug and play are the clearaudio tables with everything installed and set up. I’m not certain how good the set up is after shipping.

 

Nice thread to stumble onto, I see it's been going for over 2 years. I have a Technics SL-DL5 TT that was the last TT I used before I jumped onto the CD bandwagon. Just before I switched to CD's I had put a new cartridge on it , an AT 3003. So in 200o I got back into vinyl and have bought several TT's but the SL-DL5 stayed on the shelf. I dug it out earlier this year thinking I could use it for playing 7 inchers. First thing I had to do was replace the little belt that drives the tonearm, no big deal.
It works good for playing the 7 inchers so I'm happy with it, it sounds pretty good also. I noticed under the lid there is a screw I can turn to set the stylus pressure, it has 3 positions and it's set at the middle one. There is no info on how many grams any of these 3 setting produce.
Some stuff I read on the net says the AT 3003 stylus should be set at 1-1 & 1/2 gms, wish I could tell how many grams I'm tracking at now. AT calls the 3003 a studio reference cart, does that really mean anything??
Sorry for the ramble, just kind of geeked up about this old P-mount sounding as good as it does

 

it doesn't sound like a good idea to have the cartridge as part of the tonearm, imo. what's the advantage of that, over a p-mount? the cartridge being plug-n-play is sufficient for a no-brainer solution.

doug s.

 

The 450 is going to be superior to the 92E IMO. The nude mounted diamond will make a large difference in tracking ability over a bonded. I've owned a 311EP which is similar to the 92E and currently have two 450s. The 450 has a much better stylus.