ADC TRX-3 Cartridge

jnunzir

New Member
So I picked a nice, used JVC QL-A2 turntable in the last week and low and behold it had a beautiful, gold ADC TRX-3 cartridge attached to it. There seems to be some good news and some bad news. The good news.. the cartridge is in great shape. The bad.. the stylus, not so much. Is this cartridge of any value in this condition? Is there anything that can be done to repair a stylus?

From what I know about these cartridges is that they are a bit of a rarity and thought to exist only in myth. Not sure what to do here. Is this just something I should display in the trophy case or is there still folks that are interested in having one of these, no matter what the condition?
 
The TRX-1, 2 and 3 were made for ADC by Azden/Piezo. Some people consider them to be among the best cartridges of their era, the 1980s. They're induced magnet tri-poles with Toshiba-designed line contact styli, not unlike the Azden-made Acutex 300 Series LPMs but with exotic cantilevers (titanium, sapphire). They are VERY high compliance so they're suitable only for really light (or damped) tonearms. (The QL-A2 is neither.) Replacement styli are essentially unavailable.

If you want to try to resurrect it, your best bet would be to have it retipped by Expert Stylus in the UK or perhaps Soundsmith in the US.
 
or that Needlestein guy.

No, He Who Shall Not Be Named isn't equipped to deal with Ti or sapphire cantilevers. They're beyond his skill level and not amenable to his technique. Both the retippers I mentioned can handle this job.
 
boreas - believe you incorrect there. I have a Titanium cant on a Technics 310MC provided by needlestein. I'd reference the thread but it's... well. Gone.
 
What sort of material was the donor cantilever made from? And the TRX- 3 has a tapered beryllium cantilever. The TRX-2 has the sapphire cantilever. It's the TRX-1 that has the Ti cantilever.
 
Soundsmith can perhaps repair the TRX3. It did have a hollow beryllium cantilever. Depending on how much damage was done to the original. Boron is pretty much your only option. I had a cleaning lady damage my TRX-3 breaking the stylus and less than a mm of the cantilever. Soundsmith repaired it, looks like they used the original cantilever and added the new stylus attached to a small piece of boron cantilever. It still sounds fantastic, maybe even a bit better. Worth sending it to them repair will run 450 plus shipping for a boron and nude contact line stylus. (75$ to have them evaluate it)
 
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Does anyone know what year Peter E Pritchard sold ADC to BSR ?

Either 1974 or 1975. ADC cartridge ads first started stating that ADC was a division of BSR Ltd in late-1974, but Peter Pritchard in a lecture he gave at an audio club said he sold ADC to BSR in 1975. He did work at ADC for BSR for a short time.
 
Either 1974 or 1975. ADC cartridge ads first started stating that ADC was a division of BSR Ltd in late-1974, but Peter Pritchard in a lecture he gave at an audio club said he sold ADC to BSR in 1975. He did work at ADC for BSR for a short time.

The Boston Audio Society to be precise, in 1976. A review of his talk can be found here, beginning at the bottom of page 9.
 
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