Another use for the AT91/AT3600L - in a Garrard changer

jusmee

Active Member
This morning's project was to clean and re-lube this old Garrard AT6 (old grease had turned to glue everywhere), then fit a magnetic cartridge. I decided to try one of those cheap AT carts. The Garrard still needs a cleanup after the surgery, but here's a pic. I actually used an AT91BL - about the same as AT3600L. A little adjustment and tweaking and it plays beautifully. I have it tracking at about 2 grams, but for older changers, the cart's ability to handle 3 or 4 grams makes it easy to use when fixing up old changers.

AT6-AT3600L.jpg
 
This morning's project was to clean and re-lube this old Garrard AT6 (old grease had turned to glue everywhere), then fit a magnetic cartridge. I decided to try one of those cheap AT carts. The Garrard still needs a cleanup after the surgery, but here's a pic. I actually used an AT91BL - about the same as AT3600L. A little adjustment and tweaking and it plays beautifully. I have it tracking at about 2 grams, but for older changers, the cart's ability to handle 3 or 4 grams makes it easy to use when fixing up old changers.

View attachment 1284271
I have the same AT6 in a Fisher console and am trying to figure out if I want to go with a AT3600L or just replace the flip needle in the original Astatic ceramic cartridge. Are you still running this setup now a year later?
 
Yup, like the ability of the AT3600l to handle some real VTF. Got one on a Lenco B52, which have a tonearm that is a bit on the clunky side, I must admit. Tracking at 3g's and it´s sounding really good,
 
personally I'd go for the mag cart rather than a new nail on the Astatic, especially if you aren't playing 78's. I have an AT6 with a Stanton DJ cart that I put in my console. It runs one of those much-hyped Realistic phono preamps that I got for under 20 bucks. Works wonderfully. I got the Stanton cart when they were on clearance from everywhere for under 30 bucks. If I had it to do again I'd be fine with the AT3600l though. The AT6 will run happily at 3 grams.

One small mention, there are 2 slightly different headshells for the AT6. The OP's has the "long skirt" version. With some cartridges you may need to add a spacer to get the nail below the level of the headshell.

The version more typically seen with mag carts has a much shorter skirt.

tall_short.jpg



also depending on the existing mount arrangement, you might need the adapter that goes inside the headshell to convert it from single center screw mounting to 1/2" mounting. There is a short and a tall version of this too

adapters.jpg

basically if you have the long skirt headshell and the short adapter, its probably going to need a spacer. Not a big deal, just something to be aware of. I don't recall if these are British screw thread or metric. Probably British 6BA.
 
personally I'd go for the mag cart rather than a new nail on the Astatic, especially if you aren't playing 78's. I have an AT6 with a Stanton DJ cart that I put in my console. It runs one of those much-hyped Realistic phono preamps that I got for under 20 bucks. Works wonderfully. I got the Stanton cart when they were on clearance from everywhere for under 30 bucks. If I had it to do again I'd be fine with the AT3600l though. The AT6 will run happily at 3 grams.

One small mention, there are 2 slightly different headshells for the AT6. The OP's has the "long skirt" version. With some cartridges you may need to add a spacer to get the nail below the level of the headshell.

The version more typically seen with mag carts has a much shorter skirt.

View attachment 1696283



also depending on the existing mount arrangement, you might need the adapter that goes inside the headshell to convert it from single center screw mounting to 1/2" mounting. There is a short and a tall version of this too

View attachment 1696286

basically if you have the long skirt headshell and the short adapter, its probably going to need a spacer. Not a big deal, just something to be aware of. I don't recall if these are British screw thread or metric. Probably British 6BA.
Looks like I have the long skirt headshell
 

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Looks like its got the tall adapter though so it should work fine. Its only when you either don't have the adapter or have the short one that the long skirt is really an issue.
 
I just mentioned this application in the main AT 3600L forum discussion. Thanks for waking us up to this application. This is what changers like this need, and in current production.
 
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