Review on 🎶 Enhance Your Vinyl Experience with Audio-Technica AT-VM95SH/H Turntable Headshell/Cartridge Combo Kit by John Jones

After more than 30 years, my Grado MCZ pickup was repaired by an overzealous cleaning lady. I also have a Clearaudio Aurum Beta cassette remastered by Soundsmith. It always seemed too bright to me and with the onset of tinnitus it got worse. I wanted to buy the current version of the MCZ but it cost $400 and I'm almost 73 years old and retired and it was hard to justify the cost. While browsing through the test reports, I came across the AT VM95 series and was particularly interested in the MV95SH. I saw that I can buy one and have 30 days to return it if I'm not satisfied. First, I ordered a headset-mounted cartridge for an additional $30. For some reason I thought the cartridge was oriented correctly. It was, t. Also, the infernal heads were light, like the cartridge, and it was difficult to get acceptable downforce. I ended up getting it down to 1.8 grams, which was the lower limit of an acceptable number. So forget the head if you don't have a shake. After getting him as close to the solution as possible, I began searching through my record collection. I was positively surprised. This small plastic cassette can play music. I don't know what the best pickup sounds like as I couldn't afford one, but this pickup sounded well above its price. Compared to the 30-year-old MCZ, the upper was cleaner, with no harshness. The mids were very clean and made the vocals crisper. The bass was a bit loose but got deeper with more power. My well-received albums sounded better, but that didn't make bad records great. I've heard more in the past two weeks than I've heard in years. The first album Dire Straits (180g) was a discovery for me and my favorite at the moment. Even bad records sounded better. The only drawback was the image depth, good but not outstanding. The pickup is installed on a Technics SL1200 with all available Soundsmith modifications. It replaced Sota Sapphire which sounded great but drove me crazy with small speed changes. I gave this cartridge 4 stars because I don't know what a 5 star cartridge sounds like. However, the value for money is 5+.