Review on 🎧 Red Audio-Technica VM740ML MicroLine Dual Moving Magnet Stereo Cartridge for Turntables by Amy Meurer

MY RECORDINGS: I've been collecting vinyl since the mid 1950's, mostly classical, mostly symphonic, with a bit of experimentation and anything I could find about Nancy Sinatra. I have over 400 records, I have taken care of them and I still play them often. Over the years I've had many different setups and over a dozen previous stereo cartridges including the very first General Electric GC-7 and possibly every Shure ever made. The older ones among you might even remember the name Sonotone. I know what my records sound like, and to top it off, I regularly calibrate my ears by listening to them at the best concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the country's top symphony orchestra. hall on the floor. I also attend chamber music performances and have a son-in-law who sings in a wonderful master choir. I know how natural, unamplified music sounds. MY SETUP: I have a modern audio setup without getting too absurd. If you read this review you will understand what I mean. I have full range speakers with 12" and 15" woofers and horn drivers in the front, a powerful receiver/amplifier and an Audio-Technica AT-LP120 USB handheld turntable. It originally contained an AT95E elliptical pickup unit with two moving magnets. I don't use headphones with this rig. Installing the VM740ML was very quick and easy as it is physically similar to the AT95E and all I had to do was make sure the needle position was the same and reset the arm height, downforce and anti-skate settings. This is also a recommendation for Audio-Technica's AT-LP120-USB manual transcription player. , which costs about fifty dollars, is delightfully sleek and powerful. If you have a serious record collection and want to hear them as clean and clear as possible, even better when they sounded new, choose the VM740ML. This cartridge is so good I can hear the recording industry evolving in my collection. As they got longer range and quieter bands, and learned more about better mics, mic placement and mixing, the newer the recordings got better and better. I often hear the difference in recording rooms. Carnegie Hall, for example, is a giant, bass-guzzling shoebox that Columbia's 1960s sound engineers never mastered, and there are other halls so cold and cavernous that their reverberations drown out the original sounds. recorded, the brain exploded. He's doing something else. The AT MicroLine needle is said to match the shape of the original cutting needle better than the old tapered or early elliptical, and as a result it appears to go into the groove cleaner and deeper, virtually ignoring previous wear and damage. My records have smoother surfaces than before. Some of the oldest were played on primitive record players with crystal cartridges and sapphire needles. They piled up and weighed over ten grams. Those old recordings still play with incredible clarity on the VM740ML. It also ignores needle-induced internal groove distortion, although I've had a few records so bloated that nothing can save them. FINALLY: Never forget that LPs were (and are) made like wafers and that the occasional air bubble, speck of dust or the occasional lash needs to get inside. LPs are what they are and even the VM740ML can't work miracles. Hear the rustle of a bubble or the tick-tick of an eyelash with perfect clarity. Today's new, remastered and meticulously crafted LPs sound like audio CD quality, and with this cartridge, they're indistinguishable from one another. The VM740ML does not have its own sound. It pulls whatever's in the groove of the record and feeds it unaltered to your first stage preamp. Then what happens to him is up to you.