Review on Audio Technica AT 33MONO Moving Cartridge Japan by Donotello Figueroa

I have a collection of about 2000 records. I have worked in the audio equipment industry, designing or customizing audio equipment. My last project was building an ultrasonic record cleaning machine to take care of my collection. I expect excellent device performance. I've been listening to mono albums with a stereo pickup for years. Stereo cassettes have gotten better (and more expensive), but the performance of mono LPs hasn't improved accordingly. After reading a lot about monophonic cartridges, I decided to buy them. I think the first major decision I made on this matter was buying a true mono cartridge. By that I mean one designed and wired to function as a mono pickup, not one based on a stereo pickup design and then rewired to couple the channel signals. A true mono cartridge is designed to produce a signal from horizontal movement and provide only the vertical movement necessary to correctly track the record's groove. My second big decision was to order the Audio-Technica AT33 mono moving coil cartridge and not the significantly more expensive alternatives. expensive. It's likely that these alternatives are the best pickups, but in terms of sound, that last 10% gain in performance is incredibly expensive. The closest likely true mono cartridge I considered was three times the price of the mono AT33. I've had some experience with an AT33 stereo moving coil pickup. I knew his TTX. Other users of this stereo pickup have found that this pickup produces a darker sound. However, I found that this darkness (which I heard on my system) was generated by the headshell. If you use a very hard wooden head (e.g. African ebony) then the darkness disappears. I expected the mono AT33 to have the same performance as the stereo version. I was surprised this wasn't the case. Even with a Stanton head, the ATT33's mono sound is well balanced once its tip hits the vinyl. This mono pickup improves mono LP listening in a two-channel system (compared to listening through a stereo or strap-on stereo pickup) in two important ways. Ways: lower surface noise and better signal transmission. The noise level is lower because the stylus does not pick up spurious noise from the plane's vertical movement, which is required on stereo cassette tapes for stereo recording. A true mono pickup will not unnaturally mix the signal on the pickup. Thus, a more accurate and consistent signal is reproduced by the system. Audio-Technica's AT33 mono moving-coil cartridge offers these advantages at a reasonable price.