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Anyone know any Pickering History?

Multiplex

Multiplex

Appease my earhole.
It occurred to me while I was trying to find out about a Pickering cartridge for another thread, that there really isn't much information out there about them. A few websites have information about Pickering products. KAB, for instance, has a useful chart that shows stylus/body cross brand compatibility for Stanton and Pickering. But, there isn't much out there about the company, or their history.

From the little I've found, the original company was founded in 1947 by Norman C. Pickering. In that day, phono pickups tended to be large, imprecise and cumbersome, with many still using steel needles. Pickering's original "lightweight" phono pickup was of compact design, and used a lower mass jeweled stylus tip. It sounded better and caused less wear than competing products of the era.

According to LP Gear's little blurb, "PICKERING has its roots in the phonograph cartridge as far back as 1947. Since its inception, the company has been at the leading edge of technology and development in the phono cartridge industry. PICKERING holds more patents and more industry firsts than any other manufacturer in the world."

A few more articles about Pickering's early history can be found, including a brief piece by Michael Fremer found on Analog Planet. Most give a nod to Norman Pickering's significant contributions to record playback technology, but tend to include few details about the actual company. Perhaps it's because the company didn't operate under Norman Pickering for very long.

Stanton Magnetics bought Pickering in 1950. They kept the Pickering brand, which produced product lines that seemed to pretty much run parallel to Stanton's own phono cartridge lines. I've often wondered why they did this. Stanton's website offers no indication. In fact, there's no mention of anything Pickering that I could find. Clicking the "Legacy Products" link will just pull up a bunch of discontinued DJ mixers. Their wiki page mostly mentions their newer DJ products, again with no mention of Pickering at all. I'm not even quite sure what year Pickering discontinued production.

It's a shame that such a large piece of audio history seems to be fading into obscurity. Surprising how this could happen, considering the number of Pickering products that are still floating around and how many are in use to this day.

Figured I'd start this thread so we can remember Pickering here.
 
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Richard Steinfeld, who is on the Lenco Forums quite a bit and I think shows up here from time to time, put together this fantastic handbook several years ago on everything Pickering/Stanton. Well worth finding and getting for anybody interested in the history of these companies, and their products. I'm not sure if he he's still putting them together for sale, but you might try contacting him if you're interested.

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sberger said:
Richard Steinfeld, who is on the Lenco Forums quite a bit and I think shows up here from time to time, put together this fantastic handbook several years ago on everything Pickering/Stanton. Well worth finding and getting for anybody interested in the history of these companies, and their products. I'm not sure if he he's still putting them together for sale, but you might try contacting him if you're interested.

78GW46zh.jpg
Click to expand...

Richard is a great guy. I should get his book one of these days.
 
Through the '60s and '70s, Pickering was aimed at the consumer and OEM market, while Stanton was aimed at the broadcast and professional audio industry, but there was always some crossover. Going by the ads in Stereo Review magazine, it seems that the Pickering brand was retired around 1984, presumably due to the decline in the consumer turntable market as cassettes and CDs took over.

In the mid-2000s, Pickering was briefly revived as a low-end DJ brand, but that was short-lived, and the Pickering NP/AC cartridge was rebadged as the Stanton 400.v3. There was also a UK distributor of Pickering which had its own product line, such as the "Red Hot Needle" DJ cartridge.

Here's a PDF archive of how Pickering's web site looked in 2005: http://www.amstereo.org/files/pickering2005.pdf
 
vwestlife said:
Through the '60s and '70s, Pickering was aimed at the consumer and OEM market, while Stanton was aimed at the broadcast and professional audio industry, but there was always some crossover. Going by the ads in Stereo Review magazine, it seems that the Pickering brand was retired around 1984, presumably due to the decline in the consumer turntable market as cassettes and CDs took over.

In the mid-2000s, Pickering was briefly revived as a low-end DJ brand, but that was short-lived, and the Pickering NP/AC cartridge was rebadged as the Stanton 400.v3. There was also a UK distributor of Pickering which had its own product line, such as the "Red Hot Needle" DJ cartridge.

Here's a PDF archive of how Pickering's web site looked in 2005: http://www.amstereo.org/files/pickering2005.pdf
Click to expand...
Very cool. This is the sort of thing I was looking for. I didn't know about the "rebirth" of Pickering. Perhaps I had seen these at some point, but if so, I had long since forgotten. Thanks for sharing!
 
I believe Norman Pickering stayed around after ownership changed to Stanton. He was a classical musician (violin in his youth, but an injury forced him to change to French horn) as well as an engineer, while Walter Stanton ran the business side. (I'm sure the partnership was more complicated than that but it's a nice thought.)
 
evenitup said:
View attachment 1881260 View attachment 1881261
Can anyone help identify this pickering model? Years of production/ availability? I can't find anything on it. Thanks
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Looks like a 1970's era V-15 Micro IV series cartridge. They are basically the Pickering equivalent body to the Stanton 600 "Broadcast Standard" cartridge. They originally included shims for setting height. There was a whole series of styli available for these... Everything from a heavy tracking conical to a light tracking elliptical. Assuming it has a genuine Pickering stylus installed, there should be a stylus model number printed on the top of the stylus knob.

Though other V-15 Pickering styli might physically fit in this body, they should not be used. (And the same applies for using Micro IV styli in other V-15s. They physically fit, but use different geometries.) The Micro IV has a different VTA than a other V-15 bodies. The good news is that The Voice Of Music still had some reasonably priced OEM styli for the Micro IV, last I checked.
 
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