Pickering XV 15 Styli

[Sam Cogley]

It's a shame that these cartridges never really took off in the market place.

? I see almost as many Stanton/Pickering cartridges out there as I do Shures.

 

[mjw21a]

Yes, the 785LZE is one of only 2 MM carts I've heard that can give me what my LOMC's give me..... Heck, only my very best LOMC's compete with it really. At this level it seems MM./MC is irrelevant.

 

[mjw21a]

The Hana has been beaten by 3 of my cartridges now although it still reigns supreme on my secondary system. My two sound systems are polar opposites of each other. One creates warm, laid back and room filling sound whereas the other is highly directional (full range point source speakers), revealing and transparent to a fault. Cartridge choice is critical to sound in this system..... Even more so than my main system which introduces its own sound to anything played through it.

For example, my microtracer retipped Grado Reference Platinum 1 ties for first place on my main system though is amongst my worst carts on the second.

 

[MarkNC]

I've also read that Stanton and Pickering just weren't appreciated by serious audiophiles back in the day. Even the cult status of the Stanton 881S seems to be seen as something of a recent development. That's hard for me to believe given how they sound, but quality and performance doesn't always account for what's at the top of the market. I wasn't really around in the 1970s and 1980s--I was, but I was kid--and so I don't really know from personal experience. The 1990s came and everything was digital though I still had my vinyl and my P Mount Technics deck.

So, that's what I meant. I'm going by what I gather from the forums that the Low Z Stanton and Pickering cartridges were never popular.

I can attest to this-my original XSV3000 sat around in drawers and boxes, unused, for 30-some years because I decided very early on that it had no audiophile cachet. My loss, and only pretty recently did I realize this.

 

[cscottrun4it]

You guys are killing me!

I'm a complete sucker for original parts, especially cartridges and styli. That said, I've had terrific luck with the JICO shibata tips on both my Shure M91ED and M95ED. They are complete joys to listen to.

However, on my Ortofon VMS 20 MK II, I tracked down an original stylus. After ~100 hours of listening, I still haven't warmed to the cartridge. It might be anything in my system, I guess. Most suspect would be the TP13 Kugel-mass tone arm. However, I could be victim of my own "brand whore" personality. The VMS 20 MK II has a very good reputation, but, Meh, from me.

I won't even get into my romantic indescretions with vintage AudioTechnica cartridges and their OEM styli...

So, I guess I'm LP Gear bound! Thanks everyone. I'll report back in after I purchase, receive, and mount the little bugger.

 

[Sam Cogley]

Yes, but the "Low Z" low impedance cartridges are very rare and apparently were not big sellers when they were released. A number of theories have been proposed as to why that include that they were released too close to the dawn of the digital age, that an influential TAS article curiously panned them in favor of the Grado Green or something like that, or oddly, that they weren't expensive enough when they were released and so were never considered seriously by audiophiles. I've also read that Stanton and Pickering just weren't appreciated by serious audiophiles back in the day. Even the cult status of the Stanton 881S seems to be seen as something of a recent development. That's hard for me to believe given how they sound, but quality and performance doesn't always account for what's at the top of the market. I wasn't really around in the 1970s and 1980s--I was, but I was kid--and so I don't really know from personal experience. The 1990s came and everything was digital though I still had my vinyl and my P Mount Technics deck.

So, that's what I meant. I'm going by what I gather from the forums that the Low Z Stanton and Pickering cartridges were never popular.

Ah. I didn't pick up on that. Thanks for the clarification - I was wondering if there was some sort of weird geographical distribution to certain cartridges, or something along those lines.