Regards. Several years ago a trove of the Azden carts turned up on ebay, YM-P20e and YM-P50VL.
Accompanying info. has: Azden Corp., 147 New Hyde Rd., Franklin Square Ny. All packaging and literature is from Japan.
Another hybrid MM/MI design, specs given for the 20e, 50c, 50e and 50vl are (in that order):
Stylus color: Blue, clear, blue and red (the 20e and 50e apparently shared the same stylus).
Stylus: .03 x .07 ellipt., 0.65 conical, .03 x .07 ellipt, Vital nude line contact (VL)
FR: 10-22kHz, 10-20k, 10-22k, 10-24k.
Tracking: 1.25 =- .25gr (all).
Output at 1kHz/5cm/sec: 4.0mv (all.
Channel bal.: 1.5dB, 1.5, 1.5, 1.0.
Seperation at 1kHz: 24dB, 26, 28 and 30.
Cantilever Al, Al, Al, and resounding of the space-age, UT58 (titanium alloy) for the VL.
Load: 47k/300pF (all).
Weight: 5.9gr (all).
Tried both the 20e and 50VL, the 20e was uninspiring. The 50VL offered sweet mids, easy hfs and the nicely integrated bass one might expect from the Ti cantilever/Vital line contact strapped to an IM cart. There is no evidence of tri-pole elements. A hint of overshoot from both, possibly due to reflected boundary resonances consequent to the P-mount adapter. The YM-50VL encourages long-term listening, the 20e was somewhat irritating. The 20e is long gone, the 50VL a keeper.
As to the "hybrid" quality, the stylus demonstrates magnetic attraction and there is, similar to an IM cart, a magnet mounted above the stylus.
Peace.
