GRADO Prestige Gold3 Phono Cartridge with Stylus - Standard Mount Review

Finding the right pickup is a very personal journey with many attempts to achieve the perfect sound. In my case, I've been going through a range of cassettes, big booming DJ cassettes, and more recently cassette tapes to create a vinyl CD-like sound. Everything was missing in some area and didn't bring satisfaction. In my personal search for the perfect cartridge, I read a lot about Grado cartridges. I've always been impressed with their family business of handcrafted cartridges in good old…

Grado is not for everyone and not for every installation. I've had several over the years. The sound went out a few weeks ago. I went to the automatic transmission, everything is fine, but something was missing. I will update this when the cart breaks down. It's 10 o'clock right now. Open. Wide open like my first Grado gold. Sharp and detailed in contrast to my first black. The sound is no different from the first generation carts with warmth and unabashed vocals. But there's the high end that…

In any case, I'm not an avid audiophile. I was looking for something to replace my orthophone 2m red. A little browsing and this car caught my attention. It had all the bells and whistles of a more expensive cartridge and a purported sound comparable to $3,000 cartridges. As soon as I put the cartridge on my arm, there was an awful buzz. I will say that the hum is imperceptible during gameplay. But the sound is oh my god it's awful. The instruments on the records that I had enjoyed for years…

I have had many Grado cartridges since the mid 1980's. In the 90's I had a pre-1 silver that I hated. The desk I had at the time was doing terribly. I also had a Gold1 which was much better than the old Silver. Most recently I had both Gold2 and Statement Platinum2 installed on my MoFi Ultradeck. Both tracked well (confirmed by test recording). Both sounded really good on my Sutherland Insight phono stage. I'm a very hard gamer so I decided to buy the Gold3 and go back to the user replaceable…

I was pleased to try the Grado pickup, a top American name I've known since childhood. I installed it when I was 27 years old. is an old Rega Planar 3 turntable that has undergone many modifications and upgrades over the years. I aligned it with a Baerwald protractor and adjusted downforce and offset with a digital gauge and HiFi News test log. Right from the start, even without running it, it sounded fantastic. My first recording was Sketches of Spain by Miles Davis on the original Mobile…

Be patient with this cartridge and you will be rewarded. This is a high compliance carriage that pairs perfectly with the lightweight carbon fiber arm on my Music Hall mmf 7.3 turntable. The resonance of the hand with gold 2 set is 9 Hz, ideal. After the initial setup, I let the cart run in for a good 30 hours before I started fine-tuning. Right out of the box, the first thing that struck me was the large open soundstage this car offers. The bass was deep but a bit muddy. This has cleared up…